Implementing and Validating Air Passenger–Centric Metrics Using Mobile Phone Data

Abstract

Cell phone data can be used to implement new methods for analyzing domestic air passengers’ behavior in order to have an original description of the state of the air transportation system. By leveraging over 5 billion records of mobile phone location data from a major carrier in the United States, it is possible to reliably analyze passenger behavior under both nominal and degraded airside operations, independently of the airport or airline used. Such information is currently unavailable to the major aviation stakeholders at such scale. This study validates the use of cell phone data as a reliable source of information for air transport systems: On the one hand, the aggregated phone data are consistent with traditional data sources for air traffic systems; on the other hand, this new approach enables brand new analysis with broader applications that could beneficially impact future developments of air transportation hubs and their neighboring areas.