Symbolic trajectories and application challenges

Describing the location history of moving objects exclusively in geometric terms is no longer sufficient, whereas more expressive data models capturing the complexity and heterogeneity of movement data are needed. Following this trend, the data model of symbolic trajectories has been recently proposed for the representation of content-rich trajectories in databases. The model provides a simple notation and a powerful and fully operational pattern-based query language for trajectory matching and rewriting. In this paper, we overview the key features of the model and sketch two applications cases, the former regarding the integration of heterogeneous mobility data (GPS and transportation modes), the latter the representation of migration patterns in animal ecology. The goal is to show the flexibility of the model and, at the same time, to prospect possible directions of research.