diff --git a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/fpm/PrefixSpan.scala b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/fpm/PrefixSpan.scala
index 5b8da9665366b..899078a759f31 100644
--- a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/fpm/PrefixSpan.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/mllib/fpm/PrefixSpan.scala
@@ -49,6 +49,7 @@ class PrefixSpan private (
    * The maximum number of items allowed in a projected database before local processing. If a
    * projected database exceeds this size, another iteration of distributed PrefixSpan is run.
    */
+  // TODO: make configurable with a better default value, 10000 may be too small
   private val maxLocalProjDBSize: Long = 10000
 
   /**
@@ -61,7 +62,7 @@ class PrefixSpan private (
    * Get the minimal support (i.e. the frequency of occurrence before a pattern is considered
    * frequent).
    */
-  def getMinSupport(): Double = this.minSupport
+  def getMinSupport: Double = this.minSupport
 
   /**
    * Sets the minimal support level (default: `0.1`).
@@ -75,7 +76,7 @@ class PrefixSpan private (
   /**
    * Gets the maximal pattern length (i.e. the length of the longest sequential pattern to consider.
    */
-  def getMaxPatternLength(): Double = this.maxPatternLength
+  def getMaxPatternLength: Double = this.maxPatternLength
 
   /**
    * Sets maximal pattern length (default: `10`).
@@ -96,6 +97,8 @@ class PrefixSpan private (
    *         the value of pair is the pattern's count.
    */
   def run(sequences: RDD[Array[Int]]): RDD[(Array[Int], Long)] = {
+    val sc = sequences.sparkContext
+
     if (sequences.getStorageLevel == StorageLevel.NONE) {
       logWarning("Input data is not cached.")
     }
@@ -108,10 +111,11 @@ class PrefixSpan private (
       .flatMap(seq => seq.distinct.map(item => (item, 1L)))
       .reduceByKey(_ + _)
       .filter(_._2 >= minCount)
+      .collect()
 
     // Pairs of (length 1 prefix, suffix consisting of frequent items)
     val itemSuffixPairs = {
-      val freqItems = freqItemCounts.keys.collect().toSet
+      val freqItems = freqItemCounts.map(_._1).toSet
       sequences.flatMap { seq =>
         val filteredSeq = seq.filter(freqItems.contains(_))
         freqItems.flatMap { item =>
@@ -141,13 +145,14 @@ class PrefixSpan private (
       pairsForDistributed = largerPairsPart
       pairsForDistributed.persist(StorageLevel.MEMORY_AND_DISK)
       pairsForLocal ++= smallerPairsPart
-      resultsAccumulator ++= nextPatternAndCounts
+      resultsAccumulator ++= nextPatternAndCounts.collect()
     }
 
     // Process the small projected databases locally
-    resultsAccumulator ++= getPatternsInLocal(minCount, pairsForLocal.groupByKey())
+    val remainingResults = getPatternsInLocal(minCount, pairsForLocal.groupByKey())
 
-    resultsAccumulator.map { case (pattern, count) => (pattern.toArray, count) }
+    (sc.parallelize(resultsAccumulator, 1) ++ remainingResults)
+      .map { case (pattern, count) => (pattern.toArray, count) }
   }