Mobile phone data from GSM networks for traffic parameter and urban spatial pattern assessment: a review of applications and opportunities

Abstract

The use of wireless location technology and mobile phone data appears to offer a broad range of new opportunities for sophisticated applications in traffic management and monitoring, particularly in the field of incident management. Indeed, due to the high market penetration of mobile phones, it allows the use of very detailed spatial data at lower costs than traditional data collection techniques. Albeit recent, the literature in the field is wide-ranging, although not adequately structured. The aim of this paper is to provide a systematic overview of the main studies and projects addressing the use of data derived from mobile phone networks to obtain location and traffic estimations of individuals, as a starting point for further research on incident and traffic management. The advantages and limitations of the process of retrieving location information and transportation parameters from cellular phones are also highlighted. The issues are presented by providing a description of the current background and data types retrievable from the GSM network. In addition to a literature review, the main findings on the so-called Current City project are presented. This is a test system in Amsterdam (The Netherlands) for the extraction of mobile phone data and for the analysis of the spatial network activity patterns. The main purpose of this project is to provide a full picture of the mobility and area consequences of an incident in near real time to create situation awareness. The first results from this project on how telecom data can be utilized for understanding individual presence and mobility in regular situations and during nonrecurrent events where regular flows of people are disrupted by an incident are presented. Furthermore, various interesting studies and projects carried out so far in the field are analyzed, leading to the identification of important research issues related to the use of mobile phone data in transportation applications. Relevant issues concern, on the one hand, factors that influence accuracy, reliability, data quality and techniques used for validation, and on the other hand, the specific role of private mobile companies and transportation agencies.

Dynamic, Interactive and Visual Analysis of Population Distribution and Mobility Dynamics in an Urban Environment Using the Mobility Explorer Framework

“…In their work mobile phone location methods are discussed and first attempts are described in America and Europe. The findings of the Steenbruggen et al's article [18] provide basic research questions that can actually be answered and validated by the studies carried out in our research, as presented in this paper. For instance, the Vienna case study stretches mobile phone data (i.e., GSM data) analysis to a city and city-region scale, which provides a comprehensive estimate of mobility patterns and population distribution.…”

“…In the literature, there are some examples that provide good insight into the use of mobile data to derive population distribution and mobility patterns that can be used in various urban applications [12][13][14][15][16][17]. Steenbruggen et al's work [18] work can be considered a first step towards providing a detailed overview of the state of the art of mobile GSM data for the estimation of traffic parameters. In their work mobile phone location methods are discussed and first attempts are described in America and Europe.…”

Building a validation measure for activity-based transportation models based on mobile phone data

“…Bayir et al, 2009;Berlingerio et al, 2013;Calabrese et al, 2011;Huang et al, 2009), and to the examination of the status and efficiency of current transport systems (e.g. Angelakis et al, 2013;Hansapalangkul et al, 2007;Steenbruggen et al, 2013). Alongside these studies, mobile phone data has also been investigated to explore the possibilities of building model evaluation measures.…”

Development of Support System of Psychological Tests of Drivers for the Police

“…Polish statistics are not available, but the reports about the accidents at the fault of emergency and enforcement vehicles are not uncommon. The need of test of the predispositions of the police drivers results from the fact that their actions demand the DEVELOPMENT OF SUPPORT SYSTEM OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS 121 orientation in surroundings (Steenbruggen, Borzacchiello, Nijkamp, & Scholten, 2011) and the prediction of both elements of physical surrounding, as well as the actions of others, because the appearance of a vehicle operating on a signal is a special situation which causes chaotic behaviours. It is important to remember that the vehicle is equipped with systems which service, during the steering of a vehicle, requires the divisibility of attention (Yager, Pitchers, Flagel, & Robinson, 2015).…”