An accurate passenger flow forecast can provide key information for intelligent transportation and smart cities, and help promote the development of smart cities. In this paper, a mixed passenger flow forecasting model based on the golden jackal optimization algorithm (GJO), variational mode decomposition (VMD) and boosting algorithm was proposed. First, the data characteristics of the original passenger flow sequence were extended. Second, an improved variational modal decomposition method based on the Sobol sequence improved GJO algorithm was proposed. Next, according to the sample entropy of each intrinsic mode function (IMF), IMF with similar complexity is combined into a new subsequence. Finally, according to the determination rules of the sub-sequence prediction model, the boosting modeling and prediction of different sub-sequences were carried out, and the final passenger flow prediction result was obtained. Based on the experimental results of three scenic spots, the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of the mixed set model is 0.0797, 0.0424 and 0.0849, respectively. The fitting degree reached 95.33%, 95.63% and 95.97% simultaneously. The results show that the hybrid model proposed in this study has high prediction accuracy and can provide reliable information sources for relevant departments, scenic spot managers and tourists
