Design and evaluation of trajectory join algorithms

Abstract

Both spatial and temporal join algorithms have been widely studied in the past, but there is very little work on the more complex problem of trajectory joins, which have many uses in emerging location-based applications. In this paper, we present a general framework, called JiST, that introduces a broad class of trajectory join operations, including trajectory distance join and trajectory k Nearest Neighbors join. Within the JiST framework, we present a set of algorithms to evaluate the trajectory join operations. Finally we present results from detailed experiments that demonstrate the efficiency and scalability of the JiST join algorithms. To the best of our knowledge, JiST is the first comprehensive framework for complex trajectory join operations and lays the foundation for building a complex querying platform for emerging trajectory-based applications.