Abstract
Abstract. The availability of new spatial data represents an unprecedented opportunity to better understand and plan cities. In particular, extensive data sets of human mobility data supply new information that can empower urbanism research to unveil how people use and visit urban places over time, overcoming traditional limitations related to the lack of large, detailed data sets. In this work, we explore patterns of similarities and spatial differences in human mobility flows in London, analysing their temporal variations in relation to the liveliness measured in a number of places. Using data sourced from the Oyster smart card and Twitter, we perform a time-series cluster analysis, exploring the similarity of temporal trends amongst places assigned to each cluster. Results suggest that differences in patterns appear to be related to the central and peripheral location of places, which present two or more temporal trends over the week. The type of transport network connecting the places (Tube, Railways, etc.) also appears to be a factor in determining significant differences. This work contributes to current urbanism research investigating the daily rhythms in cities. It also explores how to use mobility data to classify places according to their temporal features, with the aim of enhancing conventional analysis tools and integrating them with new quantitative information and methods.
Highlights
Understanding how urban space is used over time by people is a very relevant topic in urbanism and planning research: exploring the rhythms of the places and the presence of people in streets and public spaces can reveal how valuable a place is for its users, how well it is designed, how safe it is
We present the result of the cluster analysis of a mobility data set, performed to explore the similarities and variation of human mobility patterns in London
The cluster technique and the distance metric employed in the analysis are selected according to the type and format of our data and the purpose of our work, which is evaluating the similarity in the variation of the temporal trends rather than the mere variation of magnitude of flows, as our interest lays mainly on understanding temporal patterns of the flows and the continuity of the presence of people in places
Summary
Understanding how urban space is used over time by people is a very relevant topic in urbanism and planning research: exploring the rhythms of the places and the presence of people in streets and public spaces can reveal how valuable a place is for its users, how well it is designed, how safe it is. It can unveil useful information about the activities and the type of people using the space during the different times of the day. The spatial information about human mobility may be applied to classify places according to features different from morphology: metrics based on these data sets can integrate conventional indicators frequently used in urbanism analysis (i.e., land use, urban density), empowering the process of urban analysis and planning
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