Swarm intelligence freeway–urban trajectories (SWIFTraj) Dataset – Part I: Dataset description and applications

This study presents a detailed description and characterization of swarm intelligence freeway–urban trajectories (SWIFTraj), a new open-source vehicle trajectory dataset constructed from videos recorded by a swarm of 16 drones equipped with 5.4 K-resolution cameras. The dataset distinguishes itself from existing open-source trajectory datasets in several aspects. First, it provides long-distance continuous trajectories of up to 4.5 km on a freeway, enabling in-depth investigation of traffic phenomena and their spatial and temporal evolution. Second, the data collection site covers an integrated network comprising a long freeway corridor and parts of its connected urban network, facilitating traffic analysis and modeling from a network perspective. The potential applications of the dataset for transportation research—including traffic flow analysis, modeling, and control at multiple scales, as well as topics related to autonomous driving—are thoroughly discussed. Finally, SWIFTraj is released as a freely accessible open-source dataset to support and accelerate future research in the transportation community.