Learning and Inferring Transportation Routines

Abstract

This paper introduces a hierarchical Markov model that can learn and infer a user’s daily movements through the commu-nity. The model uses multiple levels of abstraction in order to bridge the gap between raw GPS sensor measurements and high level information such as a user’s mode of transporta-tion or her goal. We apply Rao-Blackwellised particle filters for efficient inference both at the low level and at the higher levels of the hierarchy. Significant locations such as goals or locations where the user frequently changes mode of trans-portation are learned from GPS data logs without requiring any manual labeling. We show how to detect abnormal be-haviors (e.g. taking a wrong bus) by concurrently tracking his activities with a trained and a prior model. Experiments show that our model is able to accurately predict the goals of a per-son and to recognize situations in which the user performs un-known activities.