Calibrating adaptive smoothing methods for freeway traffic reconstruction

The adaptive smoothing method (ASM) is a widely used approach for traffic state reconstruction. This article presents a Python implementation of ASM, featuring end-to-end calibration using real-world ground truth data. The calibration is formulated as a parameterized kernel optimization problem. The model is calibrated using data from a full-state observation testbed, with input from a sparse radar sensor network. The implementation is developed in PyTorch, enabling integration with various deep learning methods. We evaluate the results in terms of speed distribution, spatio-temporal error distribution, and spatial error to provide benchmark metrics for the traffic reconstruction problem. We further demonstrate the usability of the calibrated method across multiple freeways. This article is reproducible and can serve as a benchmark for various freeway operation tasks.

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Publication Details

Journal
European Transport Research Review
Published
2026-07-16
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12544-026-00818-0
Primary Topic
Traffic Prediction and Management Techniques
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
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article

Calibrating adaptive smoothing methods for freeway traffic reconstruction

Junyi Ji, William Barbour, Matthew W. Nice, Daniel B. Work et al.
European Transport Research Review
Traffic Prediction and Management Techniques
article

Calibrating adaptive smoothing methods for freeway traffic reconstruction

Junyi Ji, William Barbour, Matthew W. Nice, Daniel B. Work, Gergely Zachár, Derek Gloudemans
article en

Abstract

The adaptive smoothing method (ASM) is a widely used approach for traffic state reconstruction. This article presents a Python implementation of ASM, featuring end-to-end calibration using real-world ground truth data. The calibration is formulated as a parameterized kernel optimization problem. The model is calibrated using data from a full-state observation testbed, with input from a sparse radar sensor network. The implementation is developed in PyTorch, enabling integration with various deep learning methods. We evaluate the results in terms of speed distribution, spatio-temporal error distribution, and spatial error to provide benchmark metrics for the traffic reconstruction problem. We further demonstrate the usability of the calibrated method across multiple freeways. This article is reproducible and can serve as a benchmark for various freeway operation tasks.

European Transport Research ReviewVol. 18(1)
Vanderbilt University (US), Integrated Software (United States) (US), Virginia Tech (US)
Sustainable cities and communities
Openalex Percentile: Top 11%
Traffic Prediction and Management Techniques
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