Understanding individual and collective mobility patterns from smart card records: A case study in Shenzhen

Abstract

Understanding the dynamics of the inhabitants' daily mobility patterns is essential for the planning and management of urban facilities and services. In this paper, novel aspects of human mobility patterns are investigated by means of smart card data. Using extensive smart card records resolved in both time and space, we study the mean collective spatial and temporal mobility patterns at large scales and reveal the regularity of these patterns. We also investigate patterns of travel behavior at the individual level and show that the concentricity and regularity of mobility patterns. The analytical methodologies to spatially and temporally quantify, visualize, and examine urban mobility patterns developed in this paper could provide decision support for transport planning and management.