DGCPath: Distribution-Aware Generative Contrastive Framework for Self-supervised Path Representation Learning

Abstract

Due to proliferation of vehicle trajectory data from advanced sensing technologies, path representation learning has become a pivotal task in intelligent transportation systems. Although existing self-supervised approaches work to some extent, their dependence on deterministic contrastive learning paradigms and handcrafted view augmentation strategies inherently restricts cross-scenario generalization capabilities. To address these limitations, we present DGCPath – an innovative Distribution-aware Generative Contrastive learning framework for Path representation. This architecture establishes a synergistic connection between generative modeling and distributional contrastive learning, enabling the acquisition of robust and transferable feature embeddings. Specifically, our framework incorporates: (1) a diffusion-based view generator that autonomously produces semantically coherent yet diversified trajectory views from Gaussian noise distributions; (2) a variational contrastive mechanism enforcing latent feature alignment at the distribution level, transcending conventional instance-wise consistency; and (3) a novel generative cross-supervision module that reinforces view-level consistency through cross-view reconstruction learning. Comprehensive evaluations on three real-world trajectory datasets demonstrate DGCPath's superior performance over state-of-the-art baselines in two distinct downstream tasks, validating its enhanced generalization capacity and representation effectiveness.