Trajectory Data Management and Mining: A Survey from Deep Learning to the LLM Era
Not on the map. Why?
Abstract (arXiv)
Trajectory computing is a pivotal domain encompassing trajectory data management and mining, garnering widespread attention due to its crucial role in various practical applications such as location services, urban traffic, and public safety. Traditional methods, focusing on simplistic spatio-temporal features, face challenges of complex calculations, limited scalability, and inadequate adaptability to real-world complexities. In this paper, we present a comprehensive review of the development and recent advances in trajectory computing, from deep learning to the more recent large language models. We first define trajectory data and provide a brief overview of widely-used deep learning models. Systematically, we explore deep learning applications in trajectory management (pre-processing, storage, analysis, and visualization) and mining (trajectory-related forecasting, trajectory-related recommendation, trajectory classification, travel time estimation, anomaly detection, and mobility generation). Furthermore, we discuss emerging research directions and recent advancements in large models (represented by foundation models and large language models) for trajectory computing, which promise to reshape the next generation of trajectory computing. Additionally, we summarize application scenarios, public datasets, and toolkits. Finally, we outline current challenges in trajectory computing research and propose future directions. Relevant papers and open-source resources have been collated and are continuously updated at: https://github.com/yoshall/Awesome-Trajectory-Computing.
Key facts. Cited by 23 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 61 of its 304 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 21 Mar 2024.
Builds on
61 of 304 references.
References · 61
- 2023GPT-4 Technical Reportcited by 18,132
- 2017Graph Attention Networkscited by 8,854
- 2016node2vec: Scalable Feature Learning for Networkscited by 1,913
- 2014DeepWalk: Online Learning of Social Representationscited by 1,543
- 2024TravelPlanner: A Benchmark for Real-World Planning with Language Agentscited by 385
- 2016Deep Spatio-Temporal Residual Networks for Citywide Crowd Flows Predictioncited by 330
- 2019Deep Learning for Spatio-Temporal Data Mining: A Surveycited by 171
- 2018Deep Multi-View Spatial-Temporal Network for Taxi Demand Predictioncited by 162
- 2019Learning Improvement Heuristics for Solving Routing Problemscited by 162
- 2023Spatio-Temporal Graph Neural Networks for Predictive Learning in Urban Computing: A Surveycited by 140
- 2018Revisiting Spatial-Temporal Similarity: A Deep Learning Framework for Traffic Predictioncited by 119
- 2023Large Models for Time Series and Spatio-Temporal Data: A Survey and Outlookcited by 109
38 more
- 2023Where Would I Go Next? Large Language Models as Human Mobility Predictorscited by 92
- 2020A Survey on Deep Learning for Human Mobilitycited by 87
- 2023DiffTraj: Generating GPS Trajectory with Diffusion Probabilistic Modelcited by 64
- 2020Deep Gravity: enhancing mobility flows generation with deep neural networks and geographic informationcited by 58
- 2021MobTCast: Leveraging Auxiliary Trajectory Forecasting for Human Mobility Predictioncited by 48
- 2022Contrastive Trajectory Similarity Learning with Dual-Feature Attentioncited by 44
- 2021Unsupervised Path Representation Learning with Curriculum Negative Samplingcited by 42
- 2020A Survey on Trajectory Data Management, Analytics, and Learningcited by 41
- 2019Predicting Citywide Crowd Flows in Irregular Regions Using Multi-View Graph Convolutional Networkscited by 40
- 2020Generative Adversarial Networks for Spatio-temporal Data: A Surveycited by 35
- 2023Exploring Large Language Models for Human Mobility Prediction under Public Eventscited by 34
- 2024Deep Learning for Cross-Domain Data Fusion in Urban Computing: Taxonomy, Advances, and Outlookcited by 33
- 2023LightPath: Lightweight and Scalable Path Representation Learningcited by 32
- 2019UrbanFM: Inferring Fine-Grained Urban Flowscited by 31
- 2021Deep Spatially and Temporally Aware Similarity Computation for Road Network Constrained Trajectoriescited by 29
- 2024Diff-RNTraj: A Structure-aware Diffusion Model for Road Network-constrained Trajectory Generationcited by 28
- 2024COLA: Cross-city Mobility Transformer for Human Trajectory Simulationcited by 25
- 2018DeepTravel: a Neural Network Based Travel Time Estimation Model with Auxiliary Supervisioncited by 21
- 2022RNTrajRec: Road Network Enhanced Trajectory Recovery with Spatial-Temporal Transformercited by 21
- 2023Learning to Simulate Daily Activities via Modeling Dynamic Human Needscited by 20
- 2023PromptST: Prompt-Enhanced Spatio-Temporal Multi-Attribute Predictioncited by 20
- 2020A Survey on Deep Learning Based Point-Of-Interest (POI) Recommendationscited by 16
- 2023Traffic Prediction using Artificial Intelligence: Review of Recent Advances and Emerging Opportunitiescited by 16
- 2023Trajectory Similarity Measurement: An Efficiency Perspectivecited by 16
- 2022Weakly-supervised Temporal Path Representation Learning with Contrastive Curriculum Learning -- Extended Versioncited by 15
- 2022Mutual Distillation Learning Network for Trajectory-User Linkingcited by 15
- 2018A survey on trajectory clustering analysiscited by 12
- 2022How do you go where? Improving next location prediction by learning travel mode information using transformerscited by 12
- 2019DeepIST: Deep Image-based Spatio-Temporal Network for Travel Time Estimationcited by 11
- 2020DETECT: Deep Trajectory Clustering for Mobility-Behavior Analysiscited by 11
- 2021AttnMove: History Enhanced Trajectory Recovery via Attentional Networkcited by 11
- 2017TrajectoryNet: An Embedded GPS Trajectory Representation for Point-based Classification Using Recurrent Neural Networkscited by 10
- 2023LaDe: The First Comprehensive Last-mile Delivery Dataset from Industrycited by 10
- 2020The Case for Learned Spatial Indexescited by 9
- 2023Spatio-Temporal Trajectory Similarity Measures: A Comprehensive Survey and Quantitative Studycited by 9
- 2022Online Anomalous Subtrajectory Detection on Road Networks with Deep Reinforcement Learningcited by 7
- 2023Trajectory-User Linking via Hierarchical Spatio-Temporal Attention Networkscited by 7
- 2024MobilityDL: A Review of Deep Learning From Trajectory Datacited by 6
50 most cited of 61 All 61 (JSON)
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2024: 10; 2025: 10; 2026: 3.
23 papers.
Sort:
By area:
- 2025Time-MQA: Time Series Multi-Task Question Answering with Context Enhancementcited by 74
- 2024ControlTraj: Controllable Trajectory Generation with Topology-Constrained Diffusion Modelcited by 48
- 2024CityBench: Evaluating the Capabilities of Large Language Models for Urban Taskscited by 26
- 2024Self-Supervised Representation Learning for Geospatial Objects: A Surveycited by 8
- 2025Generative AI in Transportation Planning: A Surveycited by 8
- 2025Blurred Encoding for Trajectory Representation Learningcited by 8
- 2024Grid and Road Expressions Are Complementary for Trajectory Representation Learningcited by 7
- 2025Holistic Semantic Representation for Navigational Trajectory Generationcited by 7
- 2024TrajAgent: An LLM-Agent Framework for Trajectory Modeling via Large-and-Small Model Collaborationcited by 5
- 2024Towards Robust Trajectory Representations: Isolating Environmental Confounders with Causal Learningcited by 4
- 2024UniTE: A Survey and Unified Pipeline for Pre-training Spatiotemporal Trajectory Embeddingscited by 4
- 2025Towards An Efficient and Effective En Route Travel Time Estimation Frameworkcited by 3
11 more
- 2024Context-Aware Trajectory Anomaly Detectioncited by 2
- 2025Scalable Trajectory-User Linking with Dual-Stream Representation Networkscited by 2
- 2026TrajDLM: Topology-Aware Block Diffusion Language Model for Trajectory Generationcited by 2
- 2024Link Representation Learning for Probabilistic Travel Time Estimationcited by 1
- 2024RIDA: A Robust Attack Framework on Incomplete Graphscited by 1
- 2025Region-Point Joint Representation for Effective Trajectory Similarity Learningcited by 1
- 2025ProDiff: Prototype-Guided Diffusion for Minimal Information Trajectory Imputationcited by 0
- 2025TrajSceneLLM: A Multimodal Perspective on Semantic GPS Trajectory Analysiscited by 0
- 2025CroTad: A Contrastive Reinforcement Learning Framework for Online Trajectory Anomaly Detectioncited by 0
- 2026Transformer-Based Wildlife Species Classification from Daily Movement Trajectoriescited by 0
- 2026Artificial Intelligence for Understanding and Managing Transportation Behavior in Sustainable Smart Citiescited by 0
- 2026Artificial Intelligence for Understanding and Managing Transportation Behavior in Sustainable Smart Cities20 Jul 2026
- 2026TrajDLM: Topology-Aware Block Diffusion Language Model for Trajectory Generation11 May 2026
- 2026Transformer-Based Wildlife Species Classification from Daily Movement Trajectories7 May 2026
- 2025CroTad: A Contrastive Reinforcement Learning Framework for Online Trajectory Anomaly Detection21 Nov 2025
- 2025Region-Point Joint Representation for Effective Trajectory Similarity Learning17 Nov 2025
- 2025Blurred Encoding for Trajectory Representation Learning12 Nov 2025
- 2025TrajSceneLLM: A Multimodal Perspective on Semantic GPS Trajectory Analysis19 Jun 2025
- 2025ProDiff: Prototype-Guided Diffusion for Minimal Information Trajectory Imputation29 May 2025
- 2025Towards An Efficient and Effective En Route Travel Time Estimation Framework5 Apr 2025
- 2025Scalable Trajectory-User Linking with Dual-Stream Representation Networks19 Mar 2025
- 2025Generative AI in Transportation Planning: A Survey10 Mar 2025
- 2025Time-MQA: Time Series Multi-Task Question Answering with Context Enhancement26 Feb 2025
11 more
- 2025Holistic Semantic Representation for Navigational Trajectory Generation6 Jan 2025
- 2024Grid and Road Expressions Are Complementary for Trajectory Representation Learning22 Nov 2024
- 2024TrajAgent: An LLM-Agent Framework for Trajectory Modeling via Large-and-Small Model Collaboration27 Oct 2024
- 2024Context-Aware Trajectory Anomaly Detection24 Oct 2024
- 2024Self-Supervised Representation Learning for Geospatial Objects: A Survey22 Aug 2024
- 2024RIDA: A Robust Attack Framework on Incomplete Graphs25 Jul 2024
- 2024UniTE: A Survey and Unified Pipeline for Pre-training Spatiotemporal Trajectory Embeddings17 Jul 2024
- 2024Link Representation Learning for Probabilistic Travel Time Estimation8 Jul 2024
- 2024CityBench: Evaluating the Capabilities of Large Language Models for Urban Tasks20 Jun 2024
- 2024ControlTraj: Controllable Trajectory Generation with Topology-Constrained Diffusion Model23 Apr 2024
- 2024Towards Robust Trajectory Representations: Isolating Environmental Confounders with Causal Learning22 Apr 2024
- 2025Time-MQA: Time Series Multi-Task Question Answering with Context Enhancementcited by 74
- 2024Self-Supervised Representation Learning for Geospatial Objects: A Surveycited by 8
- 2025Generative AI in Transportation Planning: A Surveycited by 8
- 2025Blurred Encoding for Trajectory Representation Learningcited by 8
- 2024Grid and Road Expressions Are Complementary for Trajectory Representation Learningcited by 7
- 2025Holistic Semantic Representation for Navigational Trajectory Generationcited by 7
- 2024Towards Robust Trajectory Representations: Isolating Environmental Confounders with Causal Learningcited by 4
- 2024UniTE: A Survey and Unified Pipeline for Pre-training Spatiotemporal Trajectory Embeddingscited by 4
- 2025Towards An Efficient and Effective En Route Travel Time Estimation Frameworkcited by 3
- 2024Context-Aware Trajectory Anomaly Detectioncited by 2
- 2025Scalable Trajectory-User Linking with Dual-Stream Representation Networkscited by 2
- 2024Link Representation Learning for Probabilistic Travel Time Estimationcited by 1
12 most cited of 18 All 18 (JSON)
- 2026Artificial Intelligence for Understanding and Managing Transportation Behavior in Sustainable Smart Cities20 Jul 2026
- 2026Transformer-Based Wildlife Species Classification from Daily Movement Trajectories7 May 2026
- 2025CroTad: A Contrastive Reinforcement Learning Framework for Online Trajectory Anomaly Detection21 Nov 2025
- 2025Region-Point Joint Representation for Effective Trajectory Similarity Learning17 Nov 2025
- 2025Blurred Encoding for Trajectory Representation Learning12 Nov 2025
- 2025TrajSceneLLM: A Multimodal Perspective on Semantic GPS Trajectory Analysis19 Jun 2025
- 2025Towards An Efficient and Effective En Route Travel Time Estimation Framework5 Apr 2025
- 2025Scalable Trajectory-User Linking with Dual-Stream Representation Networks19 Mar 2025
- 2025Generative AI in Transportation Planning: A Survey10 Mar 2025
- 2025Time-MQA: Time Series Multi-Task Question Answering with Context Enhancement26 Feb 2025
- 2025Holistic Semantic Representation for Navigational Trajectory Generation6 Jan 2025
- 2024Grid and Road Expressions Are Complementary for Trajectory Representation Learning22 Nov 2024
12 newest of 18 All 18 (JSON)