Short-term traffic flow forecasting via echo state neural networks

An algorithm for short term traffic flaw prediction based on echo state neural networks (ESN) is proposed in this paper. ESN is a new paradigm for using recurrent neural networks (RNNs) with a simpler training method. While the prediction, traffic flow patterns are treated as time series signals; no further information is used than the past traffic flaw data records, such as weather, traffic accidents. The relation between key parameter of the ESN and the predicting performance is discussed; ESN and feed forward neural network (FNN) are compared with the same task also. Simulation experiment results demonstrate that the proposed ESN algorithm is valid and can obtain more accurate predicting results than the FNN for the short-term traffic flaw prediction problem.