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Can traffic flow patterns be predicted like magnetic fields?

Haopeng Deng, Fucheng Zheng, Xinhai Xia

May 22, 2026

Traffic congestion often builds gradually through subtle phase shifts that traditional models miss. SpinFlow treats traffic flow like a spin system in physics—using latent spin vectors to map how synchronized flow, congested flow, and free flow emerge across space and time. Tested on real trajectory data, it detects phase transitions with 94% accuracy and identifies where jams nucleate, enabling earlier intervention than reactive systems.
Published as SpinFlow: A Physics-Informed Spin Field Framework for Traffic Phase Inference and Transition Detection arXiv:2605.23306
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