Expert Systems With Applications 178 (2021) 115048

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Expert Systems With Applications

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/eswa

Spatiotemporal trajectory clustering: A clustering algorithm for

spatiotemporal data
Mohd Yousuf Ansari a, Mainuddin b, *, 1, Amir Ahmad c, Gopal Bhushan a
a
Defence Scientific Information & Documentation Centre (DESIDOC) , Defence R&D Organisation (DRDO), Metcalfe House, Delhi 110054, India
b
Department of Electronics & Communication, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi 110025, India
c
College of Information Technology, United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Spatial technologies generate large datasets quickly and continuously. The purpose of this study is to develop a
Density-based clustering clustering algorithm to mine spatiotemporal co-location events in trajectory datasets. We present a spatiotem­
Trajectory clustering poral algorithm for sub-trajectory clustering that divides a trajectory into line segments and groups theses sub-
Spatiotemporal data
trajectories on the basis of both spatial and temporal aspects by extending DBSCAN (Density Based Spatial
Co-location events
Clustering of Applications with Noise) algorithm. We adopt the concepts of entropy and silhouette index to
validate the clusters. Experiments conducted on two different real datasets demonstrate that the proposed
clustering algorithm effectively discovers optimal clusters. Furthermore, experimental results reveal hidden and
useful clusters and demonstrate that the proposed algorithm outperforms the CorClustST (Correlation-based
Clustering of Big Spatiotemporal Datasets), and the ST-OPTICS (Spatiotemporal-Ordering Points to Identify
Clustering Structure) algorithms.

1. Introduction
Currently, technological infrastructures continuously generate
massive amounts of various types of raw data, such as geographic data,
movement, date and time data, and in some cases related information,
captured by tracking devices. These gigantic volumes of data are diffi­
cult to manage and analyze to obtain useful information for decision
making (Li, Han, & Yang, 2004). Clustering techniques are helpful to
extract meaningful information (Ahmad & Dey, 2007). Spatial clus­
tering takes a static view of geospatial phenomena; however the evo­
lution of real-world phenomena is usually related to time. Therefore for
clustering to be applicable in real-world contexts, both space and time
must be considered simultaneously (Yao, 2003).
Spatiotemporal clustering groups objects based on both spatial and
temporal aspects (Ansari, Ahmad, Kahn, Bhushan, & Mainuddin, 2020)
and spatiotemporal trajectory clustering is instrumental in the analysis
of trajectory data (Zaghlool, ElKaffas, & Saad, 2015). Several applica­
tions, such as predicting moving objects relative to space and time and
mining spatiotemporal co-location events require a spatiotemporal tra­
jectory clustering technique.
Several clustering algorithms have been proposed till date, such as K-
means (Macqueen, 1967), DBSCAN (Ester, Kriegel, Sander, & Xu, 1996),
Ordering points to identify the clustering structure (OPTICS) (Ankerst,
Breunig, Kriegel, & Sander, 1999), Clustering using references and
density (CURD) (Ma, Wang, Tang, Yang, & Gao, 2003), ST-DBSCAN
(Birant & Kut, 2007), and ST-OPTICS (Agrawal, Garg, Sharma, &
Patel, 2016). These existing algorithms can cluster point data; however
they cannot cluster trajectories. Several researchers have proposed tra­
jectory clustering algorithms; notable among these are the algorithms
proposed by Pelekis et al. (2007), Gaffney and Smyth (1999), Chudova,
Gaffney, Mjolsness, and Smyth (2003), Alon, Sclaroff, Kollios, and
Pavlovic (2003), Chang and Zhou (2009), Li and Wang (2010), Nanni
and Pedreschi (2006), Tsumoto and Hirano (2009), and Yanagisawa and
Satoh (2006). These algorithms cluster a trajectory as a whole. Clus­
tering complete trajectories may miss local trajectory features and
similar parts of the trajectories may not be detected. In trajectory
analysis, parts of the trajectories may have crucial roles e.g., to analyze
interesting regions. Moreover matching complex and relatively long
trajectories is a tedious task. Some researchers have focused on sub-
trajectory clustering, such as Chang and Zhou (2009), Lee, Han, and
Whang (2007), Kreveld and Luo (2007), Yuan, Xia, Zhang, Zhou, and Ji
(2011) and Zhang, Lee, and Lee (2018). The approaches proposed by Lee

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: mainuddin@jmi.ac.in (Mainuddin).
1
ORCID: 0000-0003-1811-2062.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2021.115048
Received 8 August 2019; Received in revised form 17 March 2021; Accepted 14 April 2021
Available online 20 April 2021
0957-4174/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
M.Y. Ansari et al.
et al. (2007) and Kreveld and Luo (2007) treat the trajectory geomet­
rically; however, these approaches do not consider temporal compo­
nents such as time and speed. Considering only the geometrical aspects
of the trajectory may not reveal several interesting patterns. In real-
world applications, time and speed are crucial. For example, in the
case of a hurricane, two trajectories may have same location and shape;
however, their speeds may differ. The first trajectory may move fast
initially and then move slowly, where as the second may move slowly
and then accelerate. Therefore speed needs to be considered in the
clustering process. Location, direction, time, and speed influence inter­
nal and external features of a trajectory (Kreveld & Luo, 2007) and can
reveal meaningful patterns of the trajectory. Lee et al. (2007) have
pioneered the study of trajectory partitions. In their work, the trajectory
is partitioned into basic units based on characteristic points that express
the local features of the trajectory. A location, at which trajectory
behavior changes rapidly, e.g., changes in the speed and direction, is
considered as a characteristic point (Lee et al., 2007). The stops and
moves describe the semantic features of a trajectory; wherein a stop can
be considered as a characteristic point. Therefore, characteristic points
are instrumental in the exploration of spatiotemporal and semantic
features of a trajectory, which inspired us to select the TRACLUS algo­
rithm proposed by Lee et al. (2007). In this algorithm, each sub-
trajectory represents a direct line between two characteristic points
thereby addressing the problem of matching complex trajectories.
The TRACLUS algorithm clusters trajectories by dividing each tra­
jectory into sub-trajectories based on the minimum description length
principle to eliminate noise and to decrease the clustering time.
Furthermore, the grouping phase clusters sub-trajectories using a
modified DBSCAN algorithm (Ester et al., 1996) which groups the ob­
jects into meaningful subclasses. It visits all objects and identifies the
core objects, border objects, and noise objects. Then core objects that are
close to each other become a part of the same cluster. The TRACLUS
algorithm (Lee et al., 2007) can predict future movements of moving
objects; however it cannot identify temporal information because it
clusters line segments solely on the basis of spatial information. To
predict the movement of objects relative to space and time, we extend
the TRACLUS algorithm and cluster the line segments based on both
spatial and temporal information.
Density-based clustering algorithms can discover arbitrarily shaped
clusters and can filter noise (Birant & Kut, 2007). We observe that tra­
jectory datasets have large numbers of outliers (i.e., noise) and line
segment clusters generally exhibit an arbitrary shape.
This study aims to develop an innovative approach to mining
spatiotemporal co-location events in trajectory datasets. We expect that
the proposed approach will help in predicting future patterns of moving
objects, identify and analyze the concentration of vehicles in terms of
space and time, and improve traffic management. Our notion of the co-
location event is a temporal extension of the spatial co-location defined
by Shekhar and Huang (2001), which models the coexistence set based
on the attribute values in a spatial neighborhood.
Our primary contribution is the development of a density-based
spatiotemporal clustering algorithm, ST-TRACLUS, which is an exten­
sion of the TRACLUS algorithm. This algorithm considers both temporal
and spatial information during clustering. To generate optimal clusters,
we adopt the concepts of entropy and a silhouette index. We demon­
strate that the proposed clustering algorithm effectively discovers
optimal clusters through experiments on two real-world datasets
comprising truck-position data and hurricane-track data, respectively.
Experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm can identify
hidden and useful clusters and demonstrate that our algorithm out­
performs the CorClustST, and the ST-OPTICS algorithms.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 briefly
reviews existing clustering algorithms, specifically density-based clus­
tering approaches. Section 3 describes the proposed spatiotemporal
trajectory clustering algorithm and related basic concepts. Section 4
provides heuristics to select the parameter values of Eps and
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Expert Systems With Applications 178 (2021) 115048
timethreshold and describes a concept regarding the measurement of the
quality of clusters. Experimental evaluation results are reported in
Section 5. These results are then discussed in Section 6 and the con­
clusions and suggestions for future work are presented in Section 7.
2. Related work
In clustering, a set of objects is partitioned into sub groups based on
certain similarity measure without a priori knowledge about the dataset
(Birant & Kut, 2007). Clustering algorithms are categorized into five
main types based the technique used to define the clusters. The primary
function of a partitional algorithm is to determine a division of k clusters
that optimizes the selected dividing criteria, wherein number of clusters
(k) is the input parameter. The K-means algorithm (Macqueen, 1967) is
an important partitional algorithm. Hierarchical clustering algorithms
produce a collection of nested clusters that form a hierarchical tree, e.g.,
BIRCH (Zhang, Ramakrishnan, & Livny, 1996). Grid-based methods
quantize the object space into a grid structure. Examples of multiple
level grid based clustering algorithms include STING (Wang, Yang, &
Muntz, 1997) and WaveCluster (Sheikholeslami, Chatterjee, &Zhang,
2000). Model-based approaches use a model to determine the best fit of
data. For example in COBWEB (Fisher, 1987), a model is hypothesized
for each cluster to determine the best fit.
The DBSCAN algorithm (Ester et al., 1996) groups objects into
meaningful subclasses. In this approach, the density threshold is
expressed through the maximum radius of the neighborhood (Eps) and
the minimum number of objects in an Eps neighborhood of a given
object (MinPts). For each of the core objects, the DBSCAN algorithm
checks for clusters around each core object and if the core object has no
cluster label, then it creates a cluster with this core object and assigns a
label to this cluster. Whenever a cluster is created with a core object, all
objects within the Eps neighborhood of this core object are assigned to
the newly created cluster. This process continues until there are no core
objects without a cluster label. DBSCAN employs spatial access methods;
thus, it can process large spatial datasets (Ester et al., 1996) and can
identify arbitrarily shaped clusters.
OPTICS (Ankerst et al., 1999) is based on the DBSCAN algorithm.
The OPTICS method stores the processing order of the objects, and an
extended DBSCAN algorithm uses this information to assign cluster
membership (Ankerst et al., 1999). The OPTICS method can identify
nested clusters and the structure of clusters. The difference between
OPTICS and DBSCAN is related to the order in which objects are visited
in dataset.
CURD (Ma et al., 2003) captures the shape and extent of a cluster
with references; it then analyzes the data based on these references.
CURD can discover arbitrarily shaped clusters and is insensitive to noise
data. The high efficiency of CURD makes it suitable for mining consid­
erably large datasets. Moreover, CURD can process high-dimensional
data.
Agrawal et al. (2016) developed and validated an enhanced spatio­
temporal clustering algorithm, ST-OPTICS, by modifying OPTICS algo­
rithm. The scalable technique can identify nested and adjacent clusters,
and can handle multi-dimensional data. The approach first sorts the
observation, and handles spatiotemporal data in which spatial and non-
spatial attributes are handled using distance parameters ε1 and ε2
respectively; whereas the temporal dimension is handled by concate­
nating related spatial and non-spatial values while retaining the tem­
poral neighbors. To improve visualization and analysis of generated
micro clusters, the result of spatiotemporal clustering algorithm act as
input to agglomerative method.
Husch, Schyska, and Bremen (2020) developed CorClustST, a clus­
tering algorithm that uses the concept of correlation for big spatiotem­
poral data. The algorithm employs the concept of empirical correlations
of spatial neighbors over time. The algorithm can be extended for large-
scale parallelization.
Pelekis et al. (2007) used trajectory characteristics such as space,
M.Y. Ansari et al.
time, velocity, and direction. Gaffney and Smyth (1999) presented a
clustering technique that combines models of continuous trajectories.
Chudova et al. (2003) presented a group of algorithms to simultaneously
align the spatial and temporal shifts of trajectories within each cluster.
The Expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm is used to recover the
characteristics of each curve. Alon et al. (2003) modeled trajectories in
the form of successive positions using hidden Markov models. Chang
and Zhou (2009) proposed a technique where each trajectory is
segmented into sub-trajectories based on corner point detection. A
density-based clustering technique is then used to cluster sub-
trajectories by employing the Fréchet distance. Nanni and Pedreschi
(2006) proposed a density-based clustering method for trajectories by
adopting the OPTICS algorithm. The authors proposed two versions, i.e.,
Trajectory-OPTICS and its time-focused version, which they refer to as
TF-OPTICS. Kreveld and Luo (2007) introduced a time-dependent rela­
tion to the shape-based trajectory analysis and proposed algorithms to
compute the most similar parts of trajectories. Yuan et al. (2011) pro­
posed a trajectory clustering algorithm that employs an index tree. This
approach works in the preprocessing and clustering phase. In the pre­
processing phase, the trajectory is partitioned into segments with
respect to the corner threshold value. In the clustering phase, trajectory
data with distances matrix are stored in the index tree. Then, segments
are clustered based on the index tree.
Zhang et al. (2018) proposed a TRACLUS-based algorithm for
spatiotemporal periodic pattern mining. The TRACLUS algorithm (Lee
et al., 2007) extends DBSCAN, whereas the proposed algorithm is based
on HDBSCAN (Campello, Moulavi, & Sander, 2013). Ying, Lee, and
Tseng (2013) proposed a Geographic-temporal-semantic-based location
prediction approach that considers geographic locations, temporal in­
formation and the geographic consequence of locations visited by users
to estimate the likelihood of a user visiting a given location. Zaghlool
et al. (2015) suggested a TRACLUS-based approach to cluster sub-
trajectories considering the time dimension and to analyze spatiotem­
poral data. Bermingham and Lee (2015) proposed a methodology for n-
dimensional trajectory clustering. The authors applied the proposed
approach to the TRACLUS algorithm.
The TRACLUS algorithm (Lee et al., 2007) can predict future
movements of moving objects; however, it cannot determine temporal
information because it clusters line segments solely on the basis of
spatial information. To predict object movements relative to space and
time, to identify and analyze the concentration of vehicles in space and
time, and to help improve traffic management, we extend the TRACLUS
algorithm and cluster the line segment based on both spatial and tem­
poral information.
3. ST-TRACLUS algorithm and basic concepts
We developed a spatiotemporal trajectory clustering (ST-TRACLUS)
algorithm using the concept of the DBSCAN algorithm (Ester et al.,
1996), the TRACLUS algorithm (Lee et al., 2007), and the temporal
distance. The basic concepts pertaining to the ST-TRACLUS algorithm
are described in Section 3.1. We used the spatial distance from the
TRACLUS algorithm which is described in the Section 3.2. The proposed
temporal distance is described in Section 3.3, and the proposed ST-
TRACLUS algorithm is described in Section 3.4.
3.1. Basic concepts
In this section, we provide definitions and notations for spatiotem­
poral density-based clustering. We extend the definitions of the line
segments proposed in TRACLUS algorithm (Lee et al., 2007). Here, as­
sume that DS represents the set of line segments.
Definition1.. The spatiotemporal-neighborhood N∈,timethreshold (Li ) of a
{ ⃒
line segment Li ∈ DS is defined using N∈,timethreshold (Li ) = Lj ∈ DS⃒ spa­
tialdist(Li,Lj)≤∈ and temporaldist(Li,Lj) ≤ timethreshold}.
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Expert Systems With Applications 178 (2021) 115048
Fig. 1. Components of the spatial distance.
Definition2.. A line segment Li ∈ DS is a core line segment with
respect to∈, timethreshold and MinLns if |N∈,timethreshold (Li )| ≥ MinLns .
Definition3.. A line segment Li ∈ DS is directly density reachable from
a line segment Lj ∈ DS with respect to ∈, timethreshold and MinLns if the
following conditions are satisfied:
( )
1) Li ∈ N∈,timethreshold Lj and
2) Lj is a core line segment
Definition4.. A line segment Li ∈ DS is density reachable from a line
segment Lj ∈ DS with respect to ∈, timethreshold and MinLns if there is a
sequence of line segments Lj , Lj− 1 , ⋯, Li+1 , Li ∈ DSsuch that Lk is directly
density reachable from Lk+1 with respect to ∈, timethreshold and MinLns.
Definition5.. A line segment Li ∈ DS is density connected to a line
segment Lj ∈ DS with respect to ∈, timethreshold and MinLns if there is a
line segment Lk ∈ DSsuch that both Li and Lj are density reachable from
Lk with respect to ∈, timethreshold and MinLns.
Definition6.. A cluster C with respect to ∈, timethreshold and MinLns
is a non-empty subset of DS satisfying the following “maximality” and
“connectivity” conditions:
1) ∀Li , Lj : ifLi ∈ C and Lj is density reachable from Li with respect to ∈,
timethreshold and MinLns, then Lj ∈ C. (Maximality)
2) ∀Li , Lj ∈ C : Li is density connected to Lj with respect to ∈, time­
threshold and MinLns (Connectivity)
3.2. Spatial distance
Here, spatial distance is the geographic distance between two line
segments. In this context, spatial distance comprises perpendicular
(lprp), parallel (lprl), and angle distances (dθ), as shown in the Fig. 1. The
line segments Li = (si,ei) and Lj = (sj,ej) are also shown in Fig. 1. The
perpendicular distance between line segments Li and Lj can be computed
as follows:
l2prp1 + l2prp2
lprp (Li , Lj ) =
lprp1 + lprp2
where lprp1 and lprp2 are the Euclidean distances between sj and ps , and
ej and pe , respectively.
The parallel distance between line segments Li and Lj can be
computed as follows:
lprl (Li , Lj ) = Min(lprl1 , lprl2 )
where lprl1 and lprl2 are the Euclidean distances between si and ps and ei
and pe , respectively.
The angle distance is the difference in directional movements be­
tween two sub-trajectories. The angle distance between line segments Li
and Lj can be computed as follows:
M.Y. Ansari et al. Expert Systems With Applications 178 (2021) 115048

Fig. 2. Different cases for maximum duration overlap.

Fig. 3. Algorithm to compute the temporal distance.

{ ( ⃒⃒ ⃒ ⃒ )
min ||Li⃒|⃒|, ⃒⃒⃒⃒L)j ⃒ ⃒ × sin(θ), if 00 ≤ θ ≤ 900 The weights wprp, wprl, and wθ are determined by the application.
dθ (Li , Lj ) = (
min ||Li | |, Lj ⃒ ⃒ × sin(π − θ), if 900 < θ ≤ 1800
⃒ ⃒ Here, the default weights of wprp, wprl, and wθ are1.

The spatial distance between two line segments can be defined as

follows: 3.3. Temporal distance
( ) ( ) ( )
spatialdist Li , Lj = wprp *lprp Li , Lj + wprl *lprl Li , Lj + wθ *dθ (Li , Lj ) Two moving objects are said to be spatially similar when they move
close to each other at a given place irrespective of time. They are

4
M.Y. Ansari et al.
Fig. 4. ST-TRACLUS algorithm.
considered similar in both space and time when they move close to each
other concurrently.
The temporal distance TDi is a measure of time similarity between
two sub-trajectories. To support an almost concurrent movement, a time
window δ for the tolerance of past and future, was introduced by Pelekis
et al. (2012). We define the temporal distance based on the idea of the
Jaccard distance (Tan, Steinbach, and Kumar, 2006). To define the
temporal distance, we require time points (i.e., date and time) of both
the start and end of sub-trajectories. The pair of time points defines the
maximum duration overlap and life spans of both sub-trajectories.
Different cases that compute the maximum duration overlap are
depicted in Fig. 2.
The temporal distance TDi(δ) ∈[0, 1] is defined as follows:
TDi(δ) = ||1 − MDO(δ)/(lifeSpan1 + LifeSpan2 − MDO(δ)||
where MDOi(δ) is the maximum duration overlap of the temporal period
between two sub-trajectories, and lifeSpan1 and lifeSpan2 are the time
spans of both sub-trajectories.
The maximum duration overlap is defined as follows:
MDOi(δ) = maximum{dur([trs1, tre1] ∩ [trs2, tre2] ), dur([trs1, tre1]
∩ [trs2, tre2 + δ] ),
dur([trs1, tre1] ∩ [trs2 − δ, tre2] )}
where trs1, tre1, trs2, tre2, and δ are the start time point of sub-
trajectory 1, end time point of sub-trajectory 1, start time point of sub-
trajectory 2, end time point of sub-trajectory 2, and time window,
respectively.
We develop an algorithm, shown in Fig. 3, to compute the temporal
distance between two line segments. Initially we calculate the life spans
of both sub-trajectories and verify whether sub-trajectory 2 partially or
fully overlaps sub-trajectory1 in the temporal dimension. If the overlap
is either partial or full, we compute the maximum duration overlap
(MDO) (lines 1–10). Then, we verify whether sub-trajectory 1 partially
or fully overlaps with sub-trajectory 2 in the temporal dimension. If the
overlap is either partial or full, we compute the MDO (lines 11–19).
Finally, using the MDO and life spans of both sub-trajectories, we
compute the temporal distance. The temporal distance value can lie
between 0 and 1.
If both sub-trajectories are identical in terms of temporal dimension,
the value of the temporal distance is assumed to be 0. A temporal dis­
tance of 1 indicates that there is no temporal similarity between the sub-
trajectories. Our computation of the spatial distance is based on the
TRACLUS algorithm.
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Expert Systems With Applications 178 (2021) 115048
3.4. ST-TRACLUS algorithm
The proposed ST-TRACLUS algorithm is based on the concept of
partition and group framework proposed by Lee et al. (2007). The al­
gorithm is shown in Fig. 4. Two algorithms are executed to perform
required subtasks (lines 1–4 and line 5).
We adopt the partitioning phase of the original TRACLUS algorithm
without any modifications. To include the spatiotemporal element, we
employ the MDO-based temporal distance concept (Pelekis et al., 2012)
along with the parallel, perpendicular, and angular distances of TRA­
CLUS algorithm (Lee et al., 2007).
In the grouping phase the proposed algorithm uses a modified
DBSCAN algorithm (Fig. 5) to cluster sub-trajectories based on spatial
and temporal dimensions. Here, the input parameters are the maximum
radius of neighborhood (Eps), minimum number of lines (MinLns),
timethreshold, and time window (Delta).
The proposed line-segment clustering algorithm is listed in Fig. 5.
Here, we incorporate the temporal aspect into the grouping phase of the
TRACLUS algorithm, which is an extension of the DBSCAN algorithm.
We initialize a cluster list and mark all line segments as unvisited (lines 1
and 2). As the algorithm progresses, the line segments are marked as
visited and become members of a cluster. This is a two-step algorithm. In
the first step (lines 3–13), the algorithm computes the spatiotemporal
neighborhood of unvisited line segment L. If L is designated a core line
segment (lines 7–11), then the algorithm executes the second step to
build the cluster (line 9). Presently, the cluster has onlyN∈,timethreshold (L).
The buildCluster() function (lines 24–37) directly computes density-
reachable line segments (line 29). If these are core line segments, then
they are added to the current cluster (line 31). The spatial distance
function (line 18) has been implemented by adopting the concept of the
parallel, perpendicular, and angular distances proposed in the TRACLUS
algorithm (Lee et al., 2007).
The time complexity of the DBSCAN algorithm is O(n2), where n is
the number of objects in the database. If we use an indexing mechanism,
then the time complexity is expressed as O(n log n). Our algorithm is an
extension of the DBSCAN algorithm, and our modifications do not
change the time complexity of the algorithm. Therefore, if we scan all
line segments in the database and do not use an indexing mechanism,
then the complexity of our algorithm is O(n2). The indexing mechanism,
such as R-tree (Guttman, 1984), enables the line segments in the Eps
neighborhood to be located quickly. The use of an appropriate indexing
mechanism will reduce the time complexity of our algorithm to O(n log
n).
M.Y. Ansari et al. Expert Systems With Applications 178 (2021) 115048

Fig. 5. Line Segment Spatiotemporal Clustering Algorithm.

4. Selection of parameter values and quality measure
To select the values of parameters Eps and timethreshold, we adopt the
entropy theory and a silhouette index (Rousseeuw, 1987). Entropy is
crucial in information theory as a measure of information, choice, and
uncertainty.
When Eps and timethreshold are extremely small then
|N∈,timethreshold (L)| approaches 1 for nearly all line segments. If Eps and
timethreshold are extremely large, then |N∈,timethreshold (L)| becomes the
total number of line segments for almost all line segments. As per the
entropy theory, the entropy becomes maximum for equally likely out­
comes.

6
M.Y. Ansari et al. Expert Systems With Applications 178 (2021) 115048

Fig. 6. Entropy for truck-position data for ST-TRACLUS.

As a result, in the above cases, entropy will be maximum. The ten­ 5.1. Experimental setting
dency of |N∈,timethreshold (L)| is skewed in nature for good clustering, which
makes the entropy minimum. Equation (1) is used to compute the values Herein, we use a two real-world datasets pertaining to truck positions
of Eps and timethreshold that minimize H(X). and hurricane tracks.
The truck-position dataset pertains to the positions of 50 trucks
∑
n
H(X) = − p(xi )log2 p(xi ) (1) transporting concrete in Athens, Greece during the period from August
i=1 to September 2002. The dataset contains 1,12,300 position records.
Each record comprises the object identifier, trajectory identifier, date
|N∈,timethreshold (xi )|
wherep(xi ) = ∑n ( ) (dd/mm/yyyy), time (hh:mm:ss), and geographical coordinates in
j=1 |N∈,timethreshold xj | WGS84 and GGRS87 datum. The temporal interval is 30, which is the
sampling rate of the GPS devices on the trucks.
To select the value of parameter MinLns, the average of |
When the temporal gap between two records is greater than or equal
N∈,timethreshold (L)| at Eps and timethreshold is computed. The optimal value
to 900, we split the trajectory. By adopting this approach, we have
of MinLns is determined between avg(|N∈,timethreshold (L)) +1
identified 2314 un-partitioned trajectories from the raw truck-position
andavg(|N∈,timethreshold (L)) + 3.
dataset. The trajectories were partitioned by adopting the first phase
A cluster quality measure, i.e., the Sum of Squared Error and a noise
of the TRACULUS algorithm; 98,285 sub-trajectories were found.
penalty to penalize incorrectly classified noise (Lee et al., 2007), is
The hurricane-track dataset contains hurricane data for the Tropical
adopted.
Atlantic region of North America. The dataset is called Best Track. We
Quality Measure = Total SSE + Noise Penalty (2) use a dataset that contains data for hurricanes that occurred from 1950
( ) to 2013. Each record comprises the date, name, latitude, longitude,
∑numbersofclusters 1 ∑ ∑ 2 maximum sustained surface wind, minimum sea level pressure, and
= i=1 2|Ci | X∈Ci Y∈Ci Spatiotemporaldist(X, Y) +
STAT at an interval of 6. We preprocess the raw dataset and extract
latitude, longitude, and time to form trajectories. The dataset contains
1 ∑∑ 913 un-partitioned trajectories and has 24,488 points. We partitioned
Spatiotemporaldist(P, Q)2
2|N| P∈N Q∈N the trajectories by adopting the first phase of the TRACLUS algorithm
and found 23,238 sub-trajectories.
Here, N represents the number of all noise line segments.
To apply the parallel, perpendicular, and angular distances of the
The silhouette index (Rousseeuw, 1987) is based on a measure of
TRACLUS algorithm (Lee et al., 2007), we converted geodetic WGS84
cohesion and a measure of separation. Cohesion is how similar a line
coordinates (latitude, longitude) to earth-centered-earth-fixed Cartesian
segment is to its own cluster, whereas separation is how dissimilar a line
coordinates (x,y) (Snyder, 1987).
segment is to all other line segments belonging to other clusters.
We attempted to measure the quality of clusters by varying the
Silhouette index values range from –1 to +1. A larger value indicates
spatial and temporal thresholds i.e., Eps, MinLns, and timethreshold.
quality clusters. If most of line segments have higher values, then the
The adopted quality measures are the sum of the total sum of squared
quality of the cluster is high. If many line segments have lower or
errors and the noise penalty that is represented by Eq. (2) and the
negative values, then the cluster quality is low.
silhouette index.
The experiments were conducted on a PC with an i3 processor with a
5. Experimental evaluation
3.2 GHz CPU and 4 GB RAM running Windows 7 OS. The algorithm is
implemented in Java using NetBeans IDE 8.0.2. To visualize clusters, the
The proposed spatiotemporal clustering algorithm is evaluated on a
GeoTools 14.2 libraries (“GeoTools: GeoTools 14.2 Released.”) along
truck-position dataset1 and a hurricane-track dataset2. The experimental
with Styled Layer Descriptor (“Styled Layer Descriptor | OGC”) are used.
setting and environment are described in Section 5.1. The results of real-
We use PostgreSQL 9.3.4 with PostGIS spatial Extension 2.2.3 (”Post­
world datasets of truck positions and hurricane tracks are presented in
greSQL 9.6.2, 9.5.6 Released”) to store the geographical coordinates.
Sections 5.2 and 5.3, respectively.

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M.Y. Ansari et al. Expert Systems With Applications 178 (2021) 115048

Fig. 7. Quality measure for truck-position data for ST-TRACLUS.

Fig. 8. Truck-position data clustering results for ST-TRACLUS.

Fig. 9. Entropy for truck-position data for TRACLUS.

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M.Y. Ansari et al. Expert Systems With Applications 178 (2021) 115048

Fig. 10. Quality measure for truck-position data for TRACLUS.

5.2. Truck-position dataset results
In this section, the proposed algorithm is evaluated on truck-position
dataset. To obtain optimal values of the parameters we use the concept
of entropy and the silhouette index. The application of TRACLUS, Cor­
ClustST, and ST-OPTICS algorithms on truck-position dataset is covered
in the following sections.
5.2.1. Selection of parameter values using entropy theory
To obtain appropriate parameter values for Eps and timethreshold,
we employ various values and record the corresponding entropy which
is depicted in Fig. 6. The minimum value of entropy (16.3295) is ob­
tained at Eps = 95 and timethreshold = 0.9, as shown in Fig. 6. At this
point, the Avg(|N ∈, timethreshold(L) |) is 1.91. The smaller entropy
produces high-quality clusters; therefore, we try to keep our parameter
values close to Eps = 95, timethreshold = 0.9, and MinLns 2–4.
We compute the quality by varying Eps and MinLns and maintain

Fig. 11. Clustering results of truck-position data for TRACLUS.

9
M.Y. Ansari et al.
Fig. 12. Silhouette index for truck-position data for ST-TRACLUS.
timethreshold at 0.9, which is depicted in Fig. 7. Smaller QMeasure
values indicate a good clustering quality. The minimum QMeasure is
obtained at Eps = 320 and MinLns = 2, as shown in Fig. 7. The clusters
formed using parameter values Eps = 320, timethreshold = 0.9, and
MinLns = 2 are shown in Fig. 8.
In Fig. 8, the black lines represent the sub-trajectories that are not
part of any cluster. We obtained 7944 clusters of sub-trajectories that are
represented by different colored lines. Of the 7944 clusters 71 had more
than 100 sub-trajectories. The highest density cluster (cluster1) had
1383 line segments, and the average segment time was 61.83 s. The next
highest density cluster (cluster2) had 1193 line segments, and the
average segment time was 45.86. Clusters 3 and 4 had 612 and 527 line
segments, respectively, and average segment times of 48.04 and 47.53,
respectively. The remaining clusters had fewer than 500 line segments.
The different clusters indicate the concentration of trucks in various
parts of the city and also reveals the average time required to cross these
cluster areas.
The TRACLUS algorithm was also applied to the truck-position
dataset. We varied Eps and recorded the corresponding entropy as
shown in Fig. 9. The minimum entropy (14.0569) was obtained at Eps =
10. Lower entropy values produce high quality of clusters. Conse­
quently, we kept our parameter values close to Eps = 10 and MinLns =
Fig. 13. Clustering results of truck-position data for ST-TRACLUS using silhouette index.
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Expert Systems With Applications 178 (2021) 115048
33–35. We compute the quality metric by varying Eps and MinLns. The
minimum QMeasure is obtained at Eps = 70 and MinLns = 33, shown in
Fig. 10. As shown in Fig. 11, the resultant clusters are visualized using
parameter values Eps = 70 and MinLns = 33. Here, the black lines
represent the sub-trajectories that are not part of any cluster. We ob­
tained 70 clusters of sub-trajectories that are represented by different
colored lines. Of the 70 clusters, 32 clusters had more than 100 sub-
trajectories. The highest density cluster (cluster1) had 47,327 line seg­
ments (red lines), and the next highest density cluster (cluster2) had
19,828 line segments (green lines). Clusters 3, 4, 5, and 6 contains 2861,
1753, 547, and 542 line segments, respectively. The remaining clusters
had fewer than 500 line segments.
5.2.2. Selection of parameter values using silhouette index
A large silhouette value indicates a high quality cluster. If most line
segments have larger values, then the cluster quality is high. If many line
segments have smaller or negative values, then the cluster quality is low.
If we count the negative values in the Y-axis and Eps in the X-axis, the
lower value in the Y-axis indicates a high silhouette value. To obtain
optimal parameter values (Eps and MinLns) keeping timethreshold =
0.9, we varied Eps and MinLns and recorded the corresponding number
of negative values as shown in Fig. 12.
M.Y. Ansari et al. Expert Systems With Applications 178 (2021) 115048

Fig. 14. Silhouette index for truck-position data for TRACLUS.

Fig. 15. Clustering results of truck-position data for TRACLUS using silhouette index.

The minimum number of negative values (2 2 7) is obtained at Eps = We obtained 8451 clusters of sub-trajectories that are represented by
200 and MinLns = 3 (Fig. 12). The resultant clusters formed using different colored lines in Fig. 13. Of the 8451 clusters, 19 clusters had
parameter values Eps = 200, timethreshold = 0.9, and MinLns = 3 are more than 100 sub-trajectories. The highest density cluster (cluster1)
shown in Fig. 13. had 324 line segments, and the average segment time was 102.7. The

Fig. 16. Number of clusters of truck-position data for different Eps.

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M.Y. Ansari et al.
Fig. 17. Clustering results of truck-position data for CorClustST.
next highest density cluster (cluster2) had 229 line segments, and the
average time was 92.75. Clusters 3, 4, and 5 contain 210, 175, and 157
line segments, respectively, and the average segment times were 89.42,
92.57, and 127.83, respectively. The remaining clusters had fewer than
150 line segments.
The TRACLUS algorithm was also applied to the truck-position
dataset. To obtain optimal value of parameters, we varied Eps and
MinLns and recorded the corresponding number of negative values. The
minimum number of negative values (3 1 0) was obtained at Eps = 80
and MinLns = 34, as shown in Fig. 14. The resultant clusters formed
using parameter values Eps = 80 and MinLns = 34 are shown in Fig. 15.
We obtained 73 clusters of sub-trajectories that are represented by
different colored lines. Of the 73 clusters, 25 clusters had more than 100
sub-trajectories. The highest density cluster (cluster1) had 72,739 line
segments (red lines), and next highest density cluster (cluster2) had
1754 line segments (green lines). Clusters 3, 4, 5, and 6 contain 570,
448, 432, and 410 line segments, respectively. The remaining clusters
Fig. 18. Clustering results of truck-position data for ST-OPTICS.
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Expert Systems With Applications 178 (2021) 115048
had fewer than 400 line segments.
5.2.3. Application of CorClustST algorithm
The CorClustST algorithm (Husch et al., 2020) was developed for
points. To apply the algorithm to the truck-position dataset, we modified
the algorithm for the line segments. Pearson’s sample correlation, rho,
(Pearson, 1895) between the time series of two spatial objects has been
used to compute spatiotemporal neighbors. Initially, we selected
appropriate Eps to compute spatial neighbors such that a sufficient
numbers neighbors were considered and the computation time was
reasonable. Spatial neighbors having correlations greater than or equal
to a predefined value of rho become spatiotemporal neighbors. A 0.7-rho
value can be used for moderate correlation, and a value of 0.9 can be
used for high correlation. To select appropriate parameter values, we
varied Eps value and recorded the number of clusters for rho = 0.7 and
rho = 0.9, as shown in Fig. 16. The number of clusters becomes stable for
larger values of Eps; therefore, we selected Eps as 35000. The number of
M.Y. Ansari et al. Expert Systems With Applications 178 (2021) 115048

Fig. 19. Entropy for hurricane-track data for ST-TRACLUS.

Fig. 20. Quality measure for hurricane-track data for ST-TRACLUS.

Fig. 21. Clustering results of hurricane-track data for ST-TRACLUS.

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M.Y. Ansari et al. Expert Systems With Applications 178 (2021) 115048

Fig. 22. Entropy for hurricane-track data for TRACLUS.

clusters for rho = 0.9 were large and sizes of clusters were very small. density clusters had 20 line segments, one cluster has 19 line segments,
Very small cluster may be noisy region. The number of clusters for rho = and eighteen clusters had 18 line segments. The ST-OPTICS algorithm
0.7 was not as large as rho = 0.9 and size of clusters were reasonable; produces large number of small clusters.
therefore, we selected 0.7 as rho value. We executed the algorithm with
the aforementioned parameter values and obtained 8221 clusters of
5.3. Hurricane-track dataset results
various sizes. The clusters formed using parameter values Eps = 35000
and rho = 0.7 are shown in Fig. 17. The first three highest density
In this section, we evaluated the proposed algorithm on hurricane-
clusters had 26 line segments and next four highest density clusters had
25 line segments. Fifty five clusters had more than 20 line segments. track dataset. To obtain optimal values of parameters we used the
concept of entropy and silhouette index. The application of the TRA­
5.2.4. Application of ST-OPTICS algorithm CLUS, CorClustST, and ST-OPTICS algorithms on hurricane-track data­
set is covered in the following sections.
The ST-OPTICS algorithm (Agrawal et al., 2016) was developed for
points. To apply the algorithm to the truck-position dataset, we modified
5.3.1. Selection of parameter values using entropy theory
the algorithm to work on the line segments. We computed MinLns by
taking the natural log of the number of line segments. The spatial radius To obtain the appropriate parameter values (Eps and timethreshold),
we varied Eps and timethreshold values and recorded the corresponding
Eps1 and temporal radius Eps2 are computed depending on the MinLns
value by using a sorted k-dist graph (Ester et al., 1996). To obtain entropy as shown in Fig. 19. The minimum entropy (13.9026) was ob­
tained at Eps = 50,000 and timethreshold = 0.1. At this point, avg(|N ∈
optimal clusters, we selected MinLns = 11, Eps1 = 822, and Eps2 = 3271
based on aforementioned heuristics. In addition, the selected values for , timethreshold(L) |) was 7.53. Smaller entropy values produce high-
quality clusters. Consequently, we attempted to keep our parameter
the minimum reachability distances (Min_RD1 and Min_RD2) and
values close to Eps = 50000, timethreshold = 0.1 and MinLns = 8–10.
maximum core distances (Max_CD1 and Max_CD2) were 6.63466, 54,
We computed quality measure by varying the Eps and MinLns values
3708.96, and 3271, respectively. Based on the parameter values we
while maintaining timethreshold at 0.1, as shown in Fig. 20. The mini­
obtained 6554 clusters of various sizes. The clusters formed using
mum QMeasure was obtained at Eps = 45,000 and MinLns = 8. The
aforementioned parameter values are shown in Fig. 18. The two highest
resultant clusters formed using parameter values Eps = 45000,

Fig. 23. Quality measure for hurricane-track data for TRACLUS.

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M.Y. Ansari et al.
Fig. 24. Clustering results of hurricane-track data for TRACLUS.
Fig. 25. Silhouette index for hurricane-track data for ST-TRACLUS.
timethreshold = 0.1, and MinLns = 8 are shown in Fig. 21.
In Fig. 21, the black lines represent the sub-trajectories that are not
part of any cluster. We obtained 87 clusters of sub-trajectories that are
represented by different colored lines. The highest density cluster
(cluster1) had 7879 line segment with an average segment time of 3.05
days (green lines). The next highest density cluster (cluster2) had 528
line segments with an average segment time of 1.1 days (red lines).
Cluster 3 had 517 line segments with an average segment time of 1.14
days (blue lines). Clusters 4, 5, 6, and 7 contain 229, 133,123, and 84
line segments, respectively. For these clusters, the average segment
times were 1.08, 0.76, 0.93, and 0.7 days, respectively. The remaining
clusters had fewer than 73 line segments.
As shown in Fig. 21, cluster 1 had the maximum line segment density
with an average segment time of 3.05 days. This indicates that the most
likely passage of a hurricane is through cluster 1 (green lines). It can be
also predicted that most probably the hurricane will arrive in approxi­
mately 3.05 days from its start time. Furthermore, it also appears that
cluster 1 is spatially distant from all other clusters.
We also apply the TRACLUS algorithm to the hurricane-track data­
set. To obtain the optimal Eps parameter value, we varied it and
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Expert Systems With Applications 178 (2021) 115048
recorded the corresponding entropy as shown in Fig. 22. The minimum
entropy (13.951) was obtained at Eps = 45,000. Smaller entropy values
produce high-quality of clusters. Thus, we tried to keep our parameter
values close to Eps = 45000 and MinLns = 7–9.
We computed the quality measure by varying the Eps and MinLns in
Fig. 23. As shown in Fig. 23, the minimum QMeasure was obtained at
Eps = 45,000 and MinLns = 7. The resultant clusters formed using
parameter values Eps = 45000 and MinLns = 7 are shown in Fig. 24.
Here, the black lines represent the sub-trajectories that are not part of
any cluster. We obtained 56 clusters of sub-trajectories that are repre­
sented by different colored lines. The highest density cluster (cluster1)
had 11,102 line segments (green lines) and the next highest density
cluster (cluster2) had 328 line segments. Clusters 3, 4, and 5 had 99, 60,
and 49 line segments, respectively. The remaining clusters had fewer
than 45 line segments.
5.3.2. Selection of parameter values using silhouette index
We also applied a silhouette index to the hurricane-track data. To
obtain optimal value of parameters (Eps and MinLns) keeping time­
threshold = 0.1, we varied the Eps and MinLns and recorded the
M.Y. Ansari et al.
Fig. 26. Clustering results of hurricane-track data for ST-TRACLUS using silhouette index.
Fig. 27. Silhouette index for hurricane-track data for TRACLUS.
corresponding number of negative values. The minimum number of
negative values (25) was obtained at Eps = 35000 and MinLns = 10, as
shown in Fig. 25. The resultant clusters formed using parameter values
Eps = 35000, timethreshold = 0.1, and MinLns = 10 are shown in
Fig. 26. We obtained 46 clusters of sub-trajectories (represented by
different colored lines). The highest density cluster (cluster1) had 3946
line segment with an average segment time of 2.99 days (red lines), and
the next highest density cluster (cluster2) had 557 line segments with an
average segment time of 1.39 days (orange lines). Cluster 3 had 347 line
segments with an average segment time of 1.33 days (green lines). The
remaining clusters had fewer than 40 line segments.
We also applied the TRACLUS algorithm to the hurricane-track data.
To obtain optimal parameter values, we varied the Eps and MinLns and
recorded the corresponding number of negative values. The minimum
number of negative values (3 3 5) was obtained at Eps = 35000 and
MinLns = 8, as shown in Fig. 27. The resultant clusters formed using
parameter values Eps = 35000 and MinLns = 8 are shown in Fig. 28. We
obtained 81 clusters of sub-trajectories, which are represented by
different colored lines in Fig. 28. The highest density cluster (cluster1)
had 4417 line segments (green lines) and the next highest density cluster
(cluster2) had 1460 line segments (red lines). The remaining clusters
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Expert Systems With Applications 178 (2021) 115048
had fewer than 100 line segments.
5.3.3. Application of CorClust algorithm
The CorClustST algorithm (Husch et al., 2020) was developed for
points. To apply the algorithm on hurricane-track dataset, we modified
the algorithm for the line segments. To select appropriate parameter
values, we varied the Eps value and recorded the number of clusters for
rho = 0.7 and rho = 0.9 as shown in Fig. 29. The number of clusters
becomes stable for larger values of Eps; therefore, we selected Eps as
1155000. The number of clusters for both values of rho (0.7 and 0.9) was
almost the same; therefore, we selected 0.7 as the rho value. We
executed the algorithm with the aforementioned parameter values and
obtained 19 clusters of various sizes. The clusters formed using param­
eter values Eps = 1155000 and rho = 0.7 are shown in Fig. 30. The
highest density cluster (cluster1) had 7419 line segments, and the next
highest density cluster (cluster2) had 3878 line segments. Ten clusters
had more than 100 line segments.
5.3.4. Application of ST-OPTICS algorithm
The ST-OPTICS algorithm (Agrawal et al., 2016) was developed for
points. To apply the algorithm on hurricane-track dataset, we modified
M.Y. Ansari et al.
Fig. 28. Clustering results of hurricane-track data for TRACLUS using the silhouette index.
Fig. 29. Number of clusters of hurricane-track data for different Eps.
the algorithm to work on the line segments. To obtain quality clusters,
the parameters MinLns = 10, Eps1 = 378000, and Eps2 = 27 were
selected based on the natural log and a sorted k-dist graph (Ester et al.,
1996). The minimum reachability distances (Min_RD1 and Min_RD2)
and maximum core distances (Max_CD1 and Max_CD2) were 166557, 0,
1174650, and 24, respectively. Depending on the values of the appli­
cable parameters, we obtained 65 clusters of various sizes. The clusters
formed using aforementioned parameter values are shown in Fig. 31.
The highest density cluster (cluster1) had 3208 line segments and the
next highest density cluster (cluster2) had 3122 line segments. Nineteen
clusters had more than 100 line segments.
6. Discussion
Based on an analysis of the quality results obtained from the exper­
iments conducted using the truck-position dataset, we make the
following observations. For both quality measures, cluster 1 had the
highest number of occurrences of spatiotemporal co-location events of
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Expert Systems With Applications 178 (2021) 115048
trucks, which represents the highest level of congestion, and indicates
the likelihood of the arrival of the next truck. When we use QMeasure,
the number of sub-trajectories in clusters 3 and 4 is almost half that of
cluster2; however, the average segment time of clusters 3 and 4 is
greater than that of cluster 2, which indicates that the road conditions of
cluster 2 areas, are probably better than the cluster areas of clusters 3
and 4. When using the silhouette index cluster quality measure, the
number of sub-trajectories in cluster 5 is less than clusters 2, 3, and 4;
however, the average segment time of cluster 5 is greater than clusters 2,
3, and 4, which indicates that road conditions in the cluster 5 area are
not good. Similar conclusions can be drawn by analyzing the rest of the
clusters.
Trucks produce air and noise pollution and potentially hinder the
movement of public transportation. The above analysis could also be
helpful for the evolution of policy for transportation companies and for
traffic management. This approach can also be applied to logistic sup­
port services.
If we consider the experimental results for the hurricane-track
M.Y. Ansari et al.
Fig. 30. Clustering results of hurricane-track data for CorClustST.
Fig. 31. Clustering results of hurricane-track data for ST-OPTICS.
dataset by using both quality measures, the following observations can
be made. When QMeasure is used, the density of cluster 1 is 7879 line
segments and the average segment time is 3.05 days. Cluster 1 spreads
from latitude and longitude 23.25 and –99.5 to 10.8 and –17.3,
respectively, which covers a lengthy distance (approximately 8750 km).
This indicates that the hurricane passes through this cluster at extremely
high speed because it covers a lengthy distance in 3.05 days. The density
of cluster 2 is 528 line segments with an average segment time of 1.1
days. Cluster 2 spreads from latitude and longitude 27.93 and –84.47 to
34.80 and –72.45, respectively, which cover approximately 1370 km.
When we use the silhouette index cluster quality measure, cluster 1 had
3946 line segments, average segment time of 2.99 days, and covered a
lengthy distance. Cluster2 had 557 line segments, average segment time
of 1.39 days, and covered a short distance. After analyzing the results
using both quality measures, we conclude that the hurricane passes
through cluster 2 with relatively less speed than it passes through cluster
1. A possible cause could be that the cluster 1 area may not have ob­
stacles that hinder the motion of hurricane, whereas cluster 2 might
have obstacles.
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Expert Systems With Applications 178 (2021) 115048
6.1. Comparison of clustering methods
To demonstrate merits of the proposed algorithm, we performed
comparative study with existing three popular clustering algorithms i.e.,
TRACLUS, CorClustST, and ST-OPTICS algorithms using truck-position
dataset and hurricane-track dataset. To evaluate the results of the pro­
posed algorithm and existing three algorithms in quantitative fashion,
we adopted Dunn index (Dunn†, 1974). Dunn index is a method to
evaluate compactness and separation of clusters. The large value of
Dunn index is indicative of better cluster quality. Dunn index is based on
the concept of distance between objects. In the aforementioned algo­
rithms, spatial and temporal distances had been used, therefore we
computed Dunn index using spatial distance and temporal distance
separately.
The proposed ST-TRACLUS algorithm was compared with the TRA­
CLUS, CorClustST, and ST-OPTICS algorithms using truck-position
dataset. The proposed algorithm was compared with the TRACLUS al­
gorithm on the truck-position dataset using QMeasure and the silhouette
index cluster quality measures. Using QMeasure, the TRACLUS algo­
rithm produced 70 clusters whereas the proposed ST-TRACLUS
M.Y. Ansari et al. Expert Systems With Applications 178 (2021) 115048

Table 1
Overview of quality measure, parameters and the number of clusters on truck-position dataset.
Algorithm Quality Measure Parameters Number of clusters

TRACLUS QMeasure Eps = 70, MinLns = 33 70

ST- QMeasure Eps = 320, timethreshold = 0.9, MinLns = 2 7944
TRACLUS
TRACLUS Silhouette index Eps = 80, MinLns = 34 73
ST- Silhouette index Eps = 200, timethreshold = 0.9, MinLns = 3 8451
TRACLUS
CorClustST – Eps = 35000, Rho = 0.7 8221
ST-OPTICS Sorted k-dist graph MinLns = 11, Eps1 = 822, Eps2 = 3271, Min_RD1 = 6.63466, Min_RD2 = 54, Max_CD1 = 3708.96, Max_CD2 = 3271 6554

Table 2
Dunn indices on results of algorithms on trucks position dataset.
Algorithm Quality Measure Parameters Dunn index value- bold letters represent
better values

Using spatial Using temporal

distance distance

TRACLUS QMeasure Eps = 70, MinLns = 33 0.000270209 –

ST- QMeasure Eps = 320, timethreshold = 0.9, MinLns = 2 0.000000927 0.94462
TRACLUS
TRACLUS Silhouette index Eps = 80, MinLns = 34 0.000180958 –
ST- Silhouette index Eps = 200, timethreshold = 0.9, MinLns = 3 0.00000246 0.94561
TRACLUS
CorClustST – Eps = 35000, Rho = 0.7 0.000000244 0.93978
ST-OPTICS Sorted k-dist MinLns = 11, Eps1 = 822, Eps2 = 3271, Min_RD1 = 6.63466, Min_RD2 = 54, Max_CD1 = 0.000000301 0.84579
graph 3708.96, Max_CD2 = 3271

algorithm produced 7944 clusters. With the silhouette index quality
measure, the TRACLUS algorithm produced 73 clusters and the ST-
TRACLUS algorithm produced 8451 clusters. The CorClustST algo­
rithm produced 8221 clusters, whereas ST-OPTICS produced 11,557
clusters. The quality measure, different parameters, and number of
clusters for four algorithms are listed in Table 1.
The ST-TRACLUS, CorClustST, and ST-OPTICS algorithms produced
large number of clusters on truck-position dataset. The computation of
Dunn index on the results produced by these algorithms was taking very
long time; therefore we removed very small clusters from the results of
aforementioned three algorithms and computed Dunn index values.
Table 2 provides Dunn index values using both spatial and temporal
distance measures on the results of algorithms on truck-position dataset.
Using quality measures i.e, QMeasure and the silhouette index, the Dunn
index values (spatial: 0.000270209, and 0.000180958 using QMeasure,
and the silhouette index, respectively) of TRACLUS algorithm were
larger than the proposed algorithm (spatial: 0.000000927, and
0.00000246 using QMeasure, and the silhouette index, respectively);
however, the TRACLUS algorithm produced only spatial clusters
whereas the proposed algorithm produced spatiotemporal clusters. If we
compare the proposed algorithm with CorClustST (Dunn index value
spatial: 0.000000244) and ST-OPTICS (Dunn index value spatial:
0.000000301) using truck-position dataset, the Dunn index values
(spatial: 0.000000927, and 0.00000246 using QMeasure, and the
silhouette index, respectively) of proposed algorithm were larger than
the Dunn index values of both algorithms. The computed Dunn index
values (temporal: 0.94462, and 0.94561 using QMeasure, and the
silhouette index, respectively) of the proposed algorithm were larger
than the Dunn index values (temporal) of both CorClustST (Dunn index
value temporal: 0.93978) and ST-OPTICS (Dunn index value temporal:
0.84579) algorithms. The larger value of Dunn index is indicative of
better cluster quality therefore we can say that the proposed algorithm
performs better than the CorClustST, and the ST-OPTICS algorithms on
truck-position dataset.
The proposed ST-TRACLUS algorithm was compared with the TRA­
CLUS, CorClustST, and ST-OPTICS algorithms using the hurricane-track
dataset. The TRACLUS algorithm and proposed algorithm was compared
by adopting QMeasure and the silhouette index cluster quality mea­
sures. With QMeasure, the TRACLUS algorithm produced 56 clusters,
whereas the ST-TRACLUS algorithm produced 87 clusters. With the
silhouette index quality measure, the TRACLUS algorithm produced 81
clusters, whereas the ST-TRACLUS algorithm produced 46 clusters. The
CorClustST algorithm produced 19 clusters, whereas ST-OPTICS algo­
rithm produced 65 clusters. The quality measure, different parameters,
and the number of clusters produced by four algorithms are listed in
Table 3.
Table 4 provides Dunn index values using both spatial and temporal
distance measures on the results of algorithms on hurricane-track
dataset. Using QMeasure quality measure, the Dunn index value
(spatial: 0.001406) of the proposed algorithm was larger than TRACLUS
algorithm (Dunn index value spatial: 0.000985), but in case of the
silhouette index quality measure the Dunn index value (spatial:
0.001778) of TRACLUS was larger than the proposed algorithm (Dunn
index value spatial: 0.001166). If we compare the proposed algorithm
with CorClustST (Dunn index value spatial: 0.000230) and ST-OPTICS
(Dunn index value spatial: 0.000010) using hurricane-track dataset,

Table 3
Overview of quality measure, parameters and the number of clusters on hurricane track dataset.
Algorithm Quality Measure Parameters Number of clusters

TRACLUS QMeasure Eps = 45000, MinLns = 7 56

ST-TRACLUS QMeasure Eps = 45000, timethreshold = 0.1, MinLns = 8 87
TRACLUS Silhouette index Eps = 35000, MinLns = 8 81
ST-TRACLUS Silhouette index Eps = 35000, timethreshold = 0.1, MinLns = 10 46
CorClustST – Eps = 1155000, Rho = 0.7 19
ST-OPTICS Sorted k-dist graph MinLns = 10, Eps1 = 378000, Eps2 = 27, Min_RD1 = 166557, Min_RD2 = 0, Max_CD1 = 1174650, Max_CD2 = 24 65

19
M.Y. Ansari et al.
Table 4
Dunn indices on results of algorithms on hurricane track dataset.
Algorithm Quality Measure Parameters
TRACLUS QMeasure Eps = 45000, MinLns = 7
ST- QMeasure Eps = 45000, timethreshold = 0.1, MinLns = 8
TRACLUS
TRACLUS Silhouette index Eps = 35000, MinLns = 8
ST- Silhouette index Eps = 35000, timethreshold = 0.1, MinLns = 10
TRACLUS
CorClustST – Eps = 1155000, Rho = 0.7
ST-OPTICS Sorted k-dist MinLns = 10, Eps1 = 378000, Eps2 = 27, Min_RD1 = 166557, Min_RD2 = 0, Max_CD1 =
graph 1174650, Max_CD2 = 24
the Dunn index values (spatial: 0.001406, and 0.001166 using QMeas­
ure, and the silhouette index, respectively) of proposed algorithm were
larger than both algorithms. When we employed the silhouette index
quality measure, the computed Dunn index value (temporal: 0.428571)
of the proposed algorithm was larger than the Dunn index value (tem­
poral) of both the CorClustST (Dunn index value temporal: 0.000228)
and the ST-OPTICS (Dunn index value temporal: 0.333333) algorithms.
The larger value of Dunn index is indicative of better cluster quality
therefore we can say that the proposed algorithm performs better than
the CorClustST, and the ST-OPTICS algorithms on hurricane track
dataset.
7. Conclusion and future work
The technological infrastructure of the current era continuously
generates spatiotemporal data. The data need to be analyzed to obtain
useful information. We proposed ST-TRACLUS, an innovative spatio­
temporal clustering algorithm, to mine spatiotemporal co-location
events. The algorithm partitions a trajectory into sub-trajectories and
groups them based on spatiotemporal dimensions. We implemented
visualization tools to validate clusters. We performed experiments using
truck-position data and hurricane-track data. To select appropriate
parameter values, we adopted the concept of entropy and the silhouette
index, which gave accurate values and helped in the generation of
quality clusters. To demonstrate merits of the proposed algorithm, we
performed comparative study using Dunn index, with existing three
popular clustering algorithms i.e., TRACLUS, CorClustST, and ST-
OPTICS algorithms on the truck-position data and hurricane-track
data. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed ST-
TRACLUS algorithm performs better than the CorClustST, and the ST-
OPTICS algorithms.
The clustering algorithms usually require a number of parameter
settings by the user, which affects the clustering results; therefore in
future, we will attempt develop algorithms that are more efficient and
less sensitive to parameter values. The integration of domain knowledge
with clustering helps to improve clustering accuracy and cluster inter­
pretation. We will attempt develop clustering algorithms using domain
knowledge. In addition, we will perform additional experiments with
other datasets. We will attempt, ways and means to combine the clus­
tering results of present algorithms with the result of other algorithms to
improve the performance.
Funding
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding
agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
20
Expert Systems With Applications 178 (2021) 115048
Dunn index value- bold letters represent
better values
Using spatial Using temporal
distance distance
0.000985 –
0.001406 0.155555
0.001778 –
0.001166 0.428571
0.000230 0.000228
0.000010 0.333333
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgment
This work is supported by Ministry of Electronics and Information
Technology, Government of India under the Visvesvaraya Ph.D. scheme.
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