Multi-objective federated learning traffic prediction in vehicular network for intelligent transportation system

PeerJ Comput Sci. 2025 Jun 3:11:e2922. doi: 10.7717/peerj-cs.2922. eCollection 2025.

Abstract

The spatial-temporal data of future freight traffic speed in the metropolitan region must be properly understood to develop freight-related traffic management strategies. This work introduces a new approach to traffic prediction using multi-objective federated learning. Instead of relying on a centralized cloud server for data processing, collaborative training is implemented among several participants. The proposed method utilizes the advantages of reinforcement learning in dynamic decision-making scenarios and the expressive capabilities of graphical models to identify traffic intensity. Furthermore, a new methodology integrates federated learning concepts with multi-objective optimization to forecast traffic patterns accurately. The proposed approach exhibits a higher level of performance than existing methods for estimating traffic speed. It achieves a communication delay of 23.4%, packet delivery ratio (PDR) of 92.45%, packet loss rate of 12.34%, prediction accuracy of 97.45%, and resource utilization of 89.56%. The visualisation findings demonstrate that this new approach is able to successfully capture interconnections of metropolitan areas in different neighboring cities.

Keywords: Federated learning; Intelligent transportation systems (ITS); Machine learning; Multi-objective optimization; Traffic prediction; Vehicular networks.