An improved seasonal rolling grey forecasting model using a cycle truncation accumulated generating operation for traffic flow

•A seasonal rolling grey forecasting model for urban traffic flow was proposed.•The new information priority of the proposed model was proved by rigorous matrix perturbation analysis.•The proposed model provides a new perspective on the seasonal and limited data characteristics of traffic flows.•Four time intervals of traffic forecasting show that the proposed model has good adaptability and stability. [Display omitted] Accurate real-time prediction of urban traffic flows is one of the most important problems in traffic management and control optimization research. Short-term traffic flow has complex stochastic and nonlinear characteristics, and it shows a similar seasonality within intraday and weekly trends. Based on these properties, we propose an improved binding cycle truncation accumulated generating operation seasonal grey rolling forecasting model. In the new model, the traffic flow sequence of seasonal fluctuation is converted to a flat sequence using the cycle truncation accumulated generating operation. Then, grey modeling of the cycle truncation accumulated generating operation sequence weakens the stochastic disturbances and highlights the intrinsic grey exponential law after the sequence is accumulated. Finally, rolling forecasts of the limited data reflect the new information priority and timeliness of the grey prediction. Two numerical traffic flow examples from China and Canada, including four groups at different time intervals (1 h, 15 min, 10 min, and 5 min), are used to verify the performance of the new model under different traffic flow conditions. The prediction results show that the model has good adaptability and stability and can effectively predict the seasonal variations in traffic flow. In 15 or 10 min traffic flow forecasts, the proposed model shows better performance than the autoregressive moving average model, wavelet neural network model and seasonal discrete grey forecasting model.