Forecast multiple time series with a univariate model

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This tutorial teaches you how to use a univariate time series model to forecast the future value for a given column, based on the historical values for that column.

This tutorial forecasts for multiple time series. Forecasted values are calculated for each time point, for each value in one or more specified columns. For example, if you wanted to forecast weather and specified a column containing city data, the forecasted data would contain forecasts for all time points for City A, then forecasted values for all time points for City B, and so forth.

This tutorial uses data from the public bigquery-public-data.new_york.citibike_trips table. This table contains information about Citi Bike trips in New York City.

Before reading this tutorial, we highly recommend that you read Forecast a single time series with a univariate model.

Objectives

This tutorial guides you through completing the following tasks:

• Creating a time series model to forecast the number of bike trips by using the CREATE MODEL statement.
• Evaluating the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) information in the model by using the ML.ARIMA_EVALUATE function.
• Inspecting the model coefficients by using the ML.ARIMA_COEFFICIENTS function.
• Retrieving the forecasted bike ride information from the model by using the ML.FORECAST function.
• Retrieving components of the time series, such as seasonality and trend, by using the ML.EXPLAIN_FORECAST function. You can inspect these time series components in order to explain the forecasted values.

Costs

This tutorial uses billable components of Google Cloud, including:

• BigQuery
• BigQuery ML

For more information about BigQuery costs, see the BigQuery pricing page.

For more information about BigQuery ML costs, see BigQuery ML pricing.

Before you begin

1. Sign in to your Google Cloud account. If you're new to Google Cloud, create an account to evaluate how our products perform in real-world scenarios. New customers also get $300 in free credits to run, test, and deploy workloads.

2. In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

   Note: If you don't plan to keep the resources that you create in this procedure, create a project instead of selecting an existing project. After you finish these steps, you can delete the project, removing all resources associated with the project.

   Go to project selector

3. Make sure that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.

4. In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

   Note: If you don't plan to keep the resources that you create in this procedure, create a project instead of selecting an existing project. After you finish these steps, you can delete the project, removing all resources associated with the project.

   Go to project selector

5. Make sure that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.

6. BigQuery is automatically enabled in new projects. To activate BigQuery in a pre-existing project, go to

   Enable the BigQuery API.

   Enable the API

Create a dataset

Create a BigQuery dataset to store your ML model:

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the BigQuery page.

   Go to the BigQuery page

2. In the Explorer pane, click your project name.

3. Click View actions > Create dataset.

   

4. On the Create dataset page, do the following:

   • For Dataset ID, enter bqml_tutorial.

   • For Location type, select Multi-region, and then select US (multiple regions in United States).

     The public datasets are stored in the US multi-region. For simplicity, store your dataset in the same location.

   • Leave the remaining default settings as they are, and click Create dataset.

     

Visualize the input data

Before creating the model, you can optionally visualize your input time series data to get a sense of the distribution. You can do this by using Looker Studio.

The SELECT statement of the following query uses the EXTRACT function to extract the date information from the starttime column. The query uses the COUNT(*) clause to get the daily total number of Citi Bike trips.

Follow these steps to visualize the time series data:

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the BigQuery page.

   Go to BigQuery

2. In the query editor, paste in the following query and click Run:

   SELECT
     EXTRACT(DATE from starttime) AS date,
     COUNT(*) AS num_trips
   FROM
   `bigquery-public-data.new_york.citibike_trips`
   GROUP BY date;
   

3. When the query completes, click Explore data > Explore with Looker Studio. Looker Studio opens in a new tab. Complete the following steps in the new tab.

4. In the Looker Studio, click Insert > Time series chart.

5. In the Chart pane, choose the Setup tab.

6. In the Metric section, add the num_trips field, and remove the default Record Count metric. The resulting chart looks similar to the following:

   

Create the time series model

You want to forecast the number of bike trips for each Citi Bike station, which requires many time series models; one for each Citi Bike station that is included in the input data. You can write multiple CREATE MODEL queries to do this, but that can be a tedious and time consuming process, especially when you have a large number of time series. Instead, you can use a single query to create and fit a set of time series models in order to forecast multiple time series at once.

In the following query, the OPTIONS(model_type='ARIMA_PLUS', time_series_timestamp_col='date', ...) clause indicates that you are creating an ARIMA-based time series model. You use the time_series_id_col option of the CREATE MODEL statement to specify one or more columns in the input data that you want to get forecasts for, in this case the Citi Bike station, as represented by the start_station_name column. You use the WHERE clause to limit the start stations to those with Central Park in their names. The auto_arima_max_order option of the CREATE MODEL statement controls the search space for hyperparameter tuning in the auto.ARIMA algorithm. The decompose_time_series option of the CREATE MODEL statement defaults to TRUE, so that information about the time series data is returned when you evaluate the model in the next step.

Follow these steps to create the model:

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the BigQuery page.

   Go to BigQuery

2. In the query editor, paste in the following query and click Run:

   CREATE OR REPLACE MODEL `bqml_tutorial.nyc_citibike_arima_model_group`
   OPTIONS
   (model_type = 'ARIMA_PLUS',
     time_series_timestamp_col = 'date',
     time_series_data_col = 'num_trips',
     time_series_id_col = 'start_station_name',
     auto_arima_max_order = 5
   ) AS
   SELECT
     start_station_name,
     EXTRACT(DATE from starttime) AS date,
     COUNT(*) AS num_trips
   FROM
   `bigquery-public-data.new_york.citibike_trips`
   WHERE start_station_name LIKE '%Central Park%'
   GROUP BY start_station_name, date;
   

   The query takes approximately 24 seconds to complete, after which the nyc_citibike_arima_model_group model appears in the Explorer pane. Because the query uses a CREATE MODEL statement, you don't see query results.

This query creates twelve time series models, one for each of the twelve Citi Bike start stations in the input data. The time cost, approximately 24 seconds, is only 1.4 times more than that of creating a single time series model because of the parallelism. However, if you remove the WHERE ... LIKE ... clause, there would be 600+ time series to forecast, and they wouldn't be forecast completely in parallel because of slot capacity limitations. In that case, the query would take approximately 15 minutes to finish. To reduce the query runtime with the compromise of a potential slight drop in model quality, you could decrease the value of the auto_arima_max_order option to 3 or 4 from the default value of 5. This shrinks the search space of hyperparameter tuning in the auto.ARIMA algorithm. For more information, see Large-scale time series forecasting best practices.

Evaluate the model

Evaluate the time series model by using the ML.ARIMA_EVALUATE function. The ML.ARIMA_EVALUATE function shows you the evaluation metrics that were generated for the model during the process of automatic hyperparameter tuning.

Follow these steps to evaluate the model:

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the BigQuery page.

   Go to BigQuery

2. In the query editor, paste in the following query and click Run:

   SELECT
    *
   FROM
    ML.ARIMA_EVALUATE(MODEL `bqml_tutorial.nyc_citibike_arima_model_group`);
   

   The results should look like the following:

   

   The start_station_name column identifies the input data column for which time series were created. This is the column that you specified in the time_series_id_col option of the CREATE MODEL statement.

   The non_seasonal_p, non_seasonal_d, non_seasonal_q, and has_drift output columns define an ARIMA model in the training pipeline. The log_likelihood, AIC, and varianceoutput columns are relevant to the ARIMA model fitting process.The fitting process determines the best ARIMA model by using the auto.ARIMA algorithm, one for each time series.

   The auto.ARIMA algorithm uses the KPSS test to determine the best value for non_seasonal_d, which in this case is 1. When non_seasonal_d is 1, the auto.ARIMA algorithm trains 42 different candidate ARIMA models in parallel. In this example, all 42 candidate models are valid, so the output contains 42 rows, one for each candidate ARIMA model; in cases where some of the models aren't valid, they are excluded from the output. These candidate models are returned in ascending order by AIC. The model in the first row has the lowest AIC, and is considered as the best model. This best model is saved as the final model and is used when you call ML.FORECAST, ML.EVALUATE, and ML.ARIMA_COEFFICIENTS as shown in the following steps.

   The seasonal_periods column contains information about the seasonal pattern identified in the time series data. Each time series can have different seasonal patterns. For example, from the figure, you can see that one time series has a yearly pattern, while others don't.

   The has_holiday_effect, has_spikes_and_dips, and has_step_changes columns are only populated when decompose_time_series=TRUE. These columns also reflect information about the input time series data, and are not related to the ARIMA modeling. These columns also have the same values across all output rows.

   For more information about the output columns, see ML.ARIMA_EVALUATE function.

While auto.ARIMA evaluates dozens of candidate ARIMA models for each time series, ML.ARIMA_EVALUATE by default only outputs the information of the best model to make the output table compact. To view all the candidate models, you can set the ML.ARIMA_EVALUATE function's show_all_candidate_model argument to TRUE.

Inspect the model's coefficients

Inspect the time series model's coefficients by using the ML.ARIMA_COEFFICIENTS function.

Follow these steps to retrieve the model's coefficients:

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the BigQuery page.

   Go to BigQuery

2. In the query editor, paste in the following query and click Run:

   SELECT
    *
   FROM
    ML.ARIMA_COEFFICIENTS(MODEL `bqml_tutorial.nyc_citibike_arima_model_group`);
   

   The query takes less than a second to complete. The results should look similar to the following:

   

   The start_station_name column identifies the input data column for which time series were created. This is the column that you specified in the time_series_id_col option of the CREATE MODEL statement.

   The ar_coefficients output column shows the model coefficients of the autoregressive (AR) part of the ARIMA model. Similarly, the ma_coefficients output column shows the model coefficients of the moving-average (MA) part of the ARIMA model. Both of these columns contain array values, whose lengths are equal to non_seasonal_p and non_seasonal_q, respectively. The intercept_or_drift value is the constant term in the ARIMA model.

   For more information about the output columns, see ML.ARIMA_COEFFICIENTS function.

Use the model to forecast data

Forecast future time series values by using the ML.FORECAST function.

In the following GoogleSQL query, the STRUCT(3 AS horizon, 0.9 AS confidence_level) clause indicates that the query forecasts 3 future time points, and generates a prediction interval with a 90% confidence level.

Follow these steps to forecast data with the model:

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the BigQuery page.

   Go to BigQuery

2. In the query editor, paste in the following query and click Run:

   SELECT
    *
   FROM
    ML.FORECAST(MODEL `bqml_tutorial.nyc_citibike_arima_model_group`,
      STRUCT(3 AS horizon, 0.9 AS confidence_level))
   

3. Click Run.

   The query takes less than a second to complete. The results should look like the following:

   

   The first column, start_station_name, annotates the time series that each time series model is fitted against. Each start_station_name has three rows of forecasted results, as specified by the horizon value.

   For each start_station_name, the output rows are in chronological order by the forecast_timestamp column value. In time series forecasting, the prediction interval, as represented by the prediction_interval_lower_bound and prediction_interval_upper_bound column values, is as important as the forecast_value column value. The forecast_value value is the middle point of the prediction interval. The prediction interval depends on the standard_error and confidence_level column values.

   For more information about the output columns, see ML.FORECAST function.

Explain the forecasting results

You can get explainability metrics in addition to forecast data by using the ML.EXPLAIN_FORECAST function. The ML.EXPLAIN_FORECAST function forecasts future time series values and also returns all the separate components of the time series. If you just want to return forecast data, use the ML.FORECAST function instead, as shown in Use the model to forecast data.

The STRUCT(3 AS horizon, 0.9 AS confidence_level) clause used in the ML.EXPLAIN_FORECAST function indicates that the query forecasts 3 future time points and generates a prediction interval with 90% confidence.

Follow these steps to explain the model's results:

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the BigQuery page.

   Go to BigQuery

2. In the query editor, paste in the following query and click Run:

   SELECT
    *
   FROM
    ML.EXPLAIN_FORECAST(MODEL `bqml_tutorial.nyc_citibike_arima_model_group`,
      STRUCT(3 AS horizon, 0.9 AS confidence_level));
   

   The query takes less than a second to complete. The results should look like the following:

   

   The first thousands rows returned are all history data. You must scroll through the results to see the forecast data.

   The output rows are ordered first by start_station_name, then chronologically by the time_series_timestamp column value. In time series forecasting, the prediction interval, as represented by the prediction_interval_lower_bound and prediction_interval_upper_bound column values, is as important as the forecast_value column value. The forecast_value value is the middle point of the prediction interval. The prediction interval depends on the standard_error and confidence_level column values.

   For more information about the output columns, see ML.EXPLAIN_FORECAST.

Clean up

To avoid incurring charges to your Google Cloud account for the resources used in this tutorial, either delete the project that contains the resources, or keep the project and delete the individual resources.

• You can delete the project you created.
• Or you can keep the project and delete the dataset.

Delete your dataset

Deleting your project removes all datasets and all tables in the project. If you prefer to reuse the project, you can delete the dataset you created in this tutorial:

1. If necessary, open the BigQuery page in the Google Cloud console.

   Go to the BigQuery page

2. In the navigation, click the bqml_tutorial dataset you created.

3. Click Delete dataset to delete the dataset, the table, and all of the data.

4. In the Delete dataset dialog, confirm the delete command by typing the name of your dataset (bqml_tutorial) and then click Delete.

Delete your project

To delete the project:

Caution: Deleting a project has the following effects:

• Everything in the project is deleted. If you used an existing project for the tasks in this document, when you delete it, you also delete any other work you've done in the project.
• Custom project IDs are lost. When you created this project, you might have created a custom project ID that you want to use in the future. To preserve the URLs that use the project ID, such as an appspot.com URL, delete selected resources inside the project instead of deleting the whole project.

If you plan to explore multiple architectures, tutorials, or quickstarts, reusing projects can help you avoid exceeding project quota limits.

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the Manage resources page.

   Go to Manage resources

2. In the project list, select the project that you want to delete, and then click Delete.
3. In the dialog, type the project ID, and then click Shut down to delete the project.

What's next

• Learn how to forecast a single time series with a univariate model
• Learn how to forecast a single time series with a multivariate model
• Learn how to scale a univariate model when forecasting multiple time series over many rows.
• Learn how to hierarchically forecast multiple time series with a univariate model
• For an overview of BigQuery ML, see Introduction to AI and ML in BigQuery.