A survey on the computation of representative trajectories

The process of computing a representative trajectory for a set of raw (or even semantically enriched) trajectories is an attractive solution to minimize several challenges related to trajectory management, like trajectory data integration or trajectory pattern analysis. We identify two main strategies for accomplishing such a process (trajectory data summarization and trajectory data fusion), but we argue that this subject is still an open issue, and we did not find a survey with such a focus. In order to fill this literature gap, this paper presents a survey that analyzes several issues around the two aforementioned strategies, like the type of representative data computed by each approach, the dimensions that are considered by the approach (spatial, temporal, and semantics), the accomplished methods of the proposed processes, and how the process is evaluated. Additionally, we compare these two research areas (trajectory summarization and trajectory fusion) in literature to analyze their relationship. Finally, some open issues related to this subject are also pointed out.