# Pre-training General Trajectory Embeddings with Maximum Multi-view Entropy Coding

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.14539 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.14539/

## Key facts

- Cited by 25 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 21 of its 63 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 29 Jul 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 21 of 21)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.04805/) (2018)
- [PyTorch: An Imperative Style, High-Performance Deep Learning Library](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01703/) (2019)
- [Representation Learning with Contrastive Predictive Coding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.03748/) (2018)
- [Layer Normalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1607.06450/) (2016)
- [Efficient Estimation of Word Representations in Vector Space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1301.3781/) (2013)
- [XLNet: Generalized Autoregressive Pretraining for Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.08237/) (2019)
- [Fourier Features Let Networks Learn High Frequency Functions in Low Dimensional Domains](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.10739/) (2020)
- [Contrastive Multiview Coding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.05849/) (2019)
- [GLM: General Language Model Pretraining with Autoregressive Blank Infilling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.10360/) (2021)
- [Learning Representations by Maximizing Mutual Information Across Views](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.00910/) (2019)
- [Neural Controlled Differential Equations for Irregular Time Series](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.08926/) (2020)
- [Pre-trained Models for Natural Language Processing: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.08271/) (2020)
- [Inductive Representation Learning on Temporal Graphs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.07962/) (2020)
- [Assessing the Ability of LSTMs to Learn Syntax-Sensitive Dependencies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.01368/) (2016)
- [Pitfalls of In-Domain Uncertainty Estimation and Ensembling in Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.06470/) (2020)
- [Learnable Fourier Features for Multi-Dimensional Spatial Positional Encoding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.02795/) (2021)
- [Do We Need Zero Training Loss After Achieving Zero Training Error?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.08709/) (2020)
- [ATRank: An Attention-Based User Behavior Modeling Framework for Recommendation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.06632/) (2017)
- [DeepMove: Learning Place Representations through Large Scale Movement Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.04241/) (2018)
- [Learning Fine Grained Place Embeddings with Spatial Hierarchy from Human Mobility Trajectories](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.02058/) (2020)

## Built on by (most cited first, 25 of 25)

- [TFB: Towards Comprehensive and Fair Benchmarking of Time Series Forecasting Methods](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.20150/) (2024)
- [Foundation Models for Time Series Analysis: A Tutorial and Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.14735/) (2024)
- [A Survey of Attacks on Large Vision-Language Models: Resources, Advances, and Future Trends](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.07403/) (2024)
- [Towards Urban General Intelligence: A Review and Outlook of Urban Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.01749/) (2024)
- [UniTraj: Learning a Universal Trajectory Foundation Model from Billion-Scale Worldwide Traces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.03859/) (2024)
- [TrajFM: A Vehicle Trajectory Foundation Model for Region and Task Transferability](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.15251/) (2024)
- [BIGCity: A Universal Spatiotemporal Model for Unified Trajectory and Traffic State Data Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.00953/) (2024)
- [Bridging Traffic State and Trajectory for Dynamic Road Network and Trajectory Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.06870/) (2025)
- [Unraveling Spatio-Temporal Foundation Models via the Pipeline Lens: A Comprehensive Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.01364/) (2025)
- [Self-Supervised Representation Learning for Geospatial Objects: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.12133/) (2024)
- [Blurred Encoding for Trajectory Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.13741/) (2025)
- [HiT-JEPA: A Hierarchical Self-supervised Trajectory Embedding Framework for Similarity Computation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.00028/) (2025)
- [TrajCogn: Leveraging LLMs for Cognizing Movement Patterns and Travel Purposes from Trajectories](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.12459/) (2024)
- [UniTE: A Survey and Unified Pipeline for Pre-training Spatiotemporal Trajectory Embeddings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.12550/) (2024)
- [TransferTraj: A Vehicle Trajectory Learning Model for Region and Task Transferability](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.12672/) (2025)
- [PTrajM: Efficient and Semantic-rich Trajectory Learning with Pretrained Trajectory-Mamba](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.04916/) (2024)
- [Spatio-Temporal Trajectory Foundation Model - Recent Advances and Future Directions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.20729/) (2025)
- [Context-Enhanced Multi-View Trajectory Representation Learning: Bridging the Gap through Self-Supervised Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.13196/) (2024)
- [Trajectory Representation Learning on Road Networks and Grids with Spatio-Temporal Dynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.14014/) (2024)
- [Pedestrian Motion Prediction Using Transformer-based Behavior Clustering and Data-Driven Reachability Analysis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.15250/) (2024)
- [Learning Generalized and Flexible Trajectory Models from Omni-Semantic Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.17437/) (2025)
- [TrajMamba: An Efficient and Semantic-rich Vehicle Trajectory Pre-training Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.17545/) (2025)
- [TrajTok: Adaptive Spatial Tokenization for Trajectory Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.20134/) (2026)
- [M-STAR: Multi-Scale Spatiotemporal Autoregression for Human Mobility Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.07314/) (2025)
- [Uncertainty-Aware Trajectory Prediction: A Unified Framework Harnessing Positional and Semantic Uncertainties](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.29362/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Spatio-temporal trajectories provide valuable information about movement and travel behavior, enabling various downstream tasks that in turn power real-world applications. Learning trajectory embeddings can improve task performance but may incur high computational costs and face limited training data availability. Pre-training learns generic embeddings by means of specially constructed pretext tasks that enable learning from unlabeled data. Existing pre-training methods face (i) difficulties in learning general embeddings due to biases towards certain downstream tasks incurred by the pretext tasks, (ii) limitations in capturing both travel semantics and spatio-temporal correlations, and (iii) the complexity of long, irregularly sampled trajectories. To tackle these challenges, we propose Maximum Multi-view Trajectory Entropy Coding (MMTEC) for learning general and comprehensive trajectory embeddings. We introduce a pretext task that reduces biases in pre-trained trajectory embeddings, yielding embeddings that are useful for a wide variety of downstream tasks. We also propose an attention-based discrete encoder and a NeuralCDE-based continuous encoder that extract and represent travel behavior and continuous spatio-temporal correlations from trajectories in embeddings, respectively. Extensive experiments on two real-world datasets and three downstream tasks offer insight into the design properties of our proposal and indicate that it is capable of outperforming existing trajectory embedding methods.