PTRAIL — A python package for parallel trajectory data preprocessing

Abstract

Trajectory data represents a trace of an object that changes its position in space over time. This kind of data is complex to handle and analyze, since it is generally produced in huge quantities, often prone to errors generated by the geolocation device, human mishandling, or area coverage limitations. Therefore, there is a need for software specifically tailored to preprocess trajectory data. In this work we propose PTRAIL, a python package offering several trajectory preprocessing steps, including filtering, feature extraction, and interpolation. PTRAIL uses parallel computation and vectorization, being suitable for large datasets and fast compared to other python libraries.

Keywords

• Trajectory preprocessing
• Feature engineering
• Parallel processing
• Vectorization