Editorial: Advances in spatial and temporal databases

Excerpt

This special issue covers novel research contributions in the area of spatial and temporal data management, which has become again a hot area in the context of currently emerging fields such as urban analytics, smart transportation, smart mobility, and location-based systems and recommendation. It contains extended versions of the four contributions that have been selected as best papers at the 15th International Symposium on Spatial and Temporal Databases (SSTD 2017) in Arlington, VA, U.S.A., which took place in August 2017. The SSTD 2017 is the 15th event of a series of biannual events that discuss novel and exciting research in spatial, temporal and spatio-temporal data management and related technologies with the goal to set future research directions. SSTD symposia primarily focus on original results in theory, design, implementation, and applications of spatial and temporal database technology. They demonstrate how much spatial and temporal data are still popular and active research domains of interest, with many open research issues that need to be addressed and application areas to be explored. Over the past few years the range of topics addressed has evolved, with the emergence of big spatial and temporal data, location-based services, environmental and urban sensors, to mention but a few examples. …