A generic trajectory similarity operator in moving object databases

Evaluating similarity between trajectories of moving objects is important for wide range of applications. The existing similarity measures typically define some meaning of similarity and propose algorithms for computing it. We think that the meaning of similarity is application dependant, and should only be determined by the user. Therefore, there is a need for a generic approach where users can define the meaning of similarity. In this paper, we propose a parametrized similarity operator, based on the time warped edit distance, where the meaning of similarity is generic and left for user to define. Our proposed operator is implemented in Secondo and evaluated using both synthetic and real datasets. The results were promising and as expected.