Mobile Phones in a Traffic Flow: A Geographical Perspective to Evening Rush Hour Traffic Analysis Using Call Detail Records

Olle Järv,Rein Ahas,Frank Witlox,Ben Derudder,Erki Saluveer,Renaud Lambiotte

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0049171

Abstract

Excessive land use and suburbanisation around densely populated urban areas has gone hand in hand with a growth in overall transportation and discussions about causality of traffic congestions. The objective of this paper is to gain new insight regarding the composition of traffic flows, and to reveal how and to what extent suburbanites’ travelling affects rush hour traffic. We put forward an alternative methodological approach using call detail records of mobile phones to assess the composition of traffic flows during the evening rush hour in Tallinn, Estonia. We found that daily commuting and suburbanites influence transportation demand by amplifying the evening rush hour traffic, although daily commuting trips comprises only 31% of all movement at that time. The geography of the Friday evening rush hour is distinctive from other working days, presumably in connection with domestic tourism and leisure time activities. This suggests that the rise of the overall mobility of individuals due to societal changes may play a greater role in evening rush hour traffic conditions than does the impact of suburbanisation.

Highlights

It is a common understanding that suburbanisation and urban sprawl in particular is deemed responsible for increasing traffic and rush hour congestions [1]
According to Ahas et al [68] the anchor point model in general, finds for every month the two most frequently used mobile antennas where call activities are made as everyday anchor points, and further, the algorithm distinguishes everyday anchor points into home and work-time locations taking into account (i) the average of calling times and (ii) the standard deviation, and (iii) spatial neighbouring relationships of anchor points
Road users who live in a part of the Tallinn functional urban region (FUR) that, due to its relative location is considered to be a catchment area for the studied road section (TAZ 3), comprise 14% of all road users

Summary

Introduction

It is a common understanding that suburbanisation and urban sprawl in particular is deemed responsible for increasing traffic and rush hour congestions [1] This assertion is convincing, as recent extensive land use changes around densely populated urban areas has gone hand in hand with a growth in transportation demand. Societal structures in post-industrial societies are changing due to the overall growth in prosperity and the shift in the labour market, globalization and development of mobile technologies This affects individuals’ everyday practices, their needs and lifestyles due to flexible working schedules and increasing leisure time [17], [18], the increase of car dependency [19], the adoption of information and telecommunication technologies (ICT) [20,21,22] and the growing importance of social networks [23], [24]. Hereinafter, we use ‘‘workplace location’’ as a synonym for a ‘‘work-time location’’ which is proposed by Ahas et al [68]

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Results

Discussion

Conclusion