# Embedding spatial context in urban traffic forecasting with contrastive pre-training

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.14980 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.14980/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 11 of its 15 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 19 Mar 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 11 of 11)

- [A Simple Framework for Contrastive Learning of Visual Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.05709/) (2020)
- [Semi-Supervised Classification with Graph Convolutional Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.02907/) (2016)
- [Graph Contrastive Learning with Augmentations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.13902/) (2020)
- [Graph WaveNet for Deep Spatial-Temporal Graph Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.00121/) (2019)
- [GraphNorm: A Principled Approach to Accelerating Graph Neural Network Training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.03294/) (2020)
- [Pre-training Enhanced Spatial-temporal Graph Neural Network for Multivariate Time Series Forecasting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.09113/) (2022)
- [Everything is Connected: Graph Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.08210/) (2023)
- [DL-Traff: Survey and Benchmark of Deep Learning Models for Urban Traffic Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.09091/) (2021)
- [Spatial-Temporal-Decoupled Masked Pre-training for Spatiotemporal Forecasting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.00516/) (2023)
- [GPT-ST: Generative Pre-Training of Spatio-Temporal Graph Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.04245/) (2023)
- [Traffic Forecasting on New Roads Using Spatial Contrastive Pre-Training (SCPT)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.05237/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Urban traffic forecasting is a commonly encountered problem, with wide-ranging applications in fields such as urban planning, civil engineering and transport. In this paper, we study the enhancement of traffic forecasting with pre-training, focusing on spatio-temporal graph methods. While various machine learning methods to solve traffic forecasting problems have been explored and extensively studied, there is a gap of a more contextual approach: studying how relevant non-traffic data can improve prediction performance on traffic forecasting problems. We call this data spatial context. We introduce a novel method of combining road and traffic information through the notion of a traffic quotient graph, a quotient graph formed from road geometry and traffic sensors. We also define a way to encode this relationship in the form of a geometric encoder, pre-trained using contrastive learning methods and enhanced with OpenStreetMap data. We introduce and discuss ways to integrate this geometric encoder with existing graph neural network (GNN)-based traffic forecasting models, using a contrastive pre-training paradigm. We demonstrate the potential for this hybrid model to improve generalisation and performance with zero additional traffic data. Code for this paper is available at https://github.com/mattchrlw/forecasting-on-new-roads.