Passive Mobile Positioning Data Research Articles

Temporary population mobilities between Estonia and Finland based on mobile phone data and the emergence of a cross-border region

ABSTRACT People move for various purposes and lengths of time. Temporary mobilities across borders have become increasingly important but are difficult to observe. In considering temporary population mobilities between Estonia and Finland, the present focus is on the volumes of temporary mobility, characteristics of visits, visitor types, temporal rhythms, distribution of visits to destinations, and their contribution to the emergence of a cross-border region. By making use of passive mobile positioning data (CDR, DDR), it is shown that mobility between Estonia and Finland is frequent, but the durations and temporal rhythms relate to different purposes in different directions. While most visitors are tourists (94% from Estonia to Finland and 99% from Finland to Estonia), regular cross-border travellers (i.e. transnationals) make up 5% of the visitors from Estonia to Finland. Intensive cross-border mobility, relating to regular visitors who spend time in both countries, contributes to the development of a cross-border region between the two countries. Mobile positioning data are of value for measuring and understanding the different types of visitor flows in cross-border regions.

Gateways for intra-national tourism flows: measured using two types of tracking technologies

PurposeUnderstanding the essence of tourism flows is one of the fundamental undertakings of tourism geography research and a key issue behind effective destination management and development. However, thus far, few studies have analysed tourist movement on a national scale. This is due to the deficiency of spatially accurate data that can be used for recording tourists’ intra-national movements. This paper aims to illustrate the impact of major gateways on national tourism flows by using tracking data; and demonstrate and compare the use and applicability of tracking data on a national scale.Design/methodology/approachIn this study, the authors analyse foreign tourists’ movements using two spatially and temporally precise tracking data sets – call detail records from passive mobile positioning data and GPS data from smartphones – in two countries, Estonia and Israel. The movements of international tourists entering the countries via main gateways are studied, with a focus on the impact of gateways on intra-national tourism flows.FindingsThe results clearly show the impact of gateways on the concentration of tourists. In the two respective countries, the critical mass of time was spent in close proximity to the gateway and, due to distance decay, a dramatic decrease was seen in visitation to areas that were distanced from both countries’ core areas.Originality/valueTo the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first time when tourism flows attained from tracking data are compared on a national scale for two countries.

Methodological framework for producing national tourism statistics from mobile positioning data

Due to the ongoing increase in daily mobility, reductions in border controls, and new trends in tourism, it is important to find new ways to record comprehensively the growing number of tourists. This paper describes a method of extracting cross-border statistics on tourism from roaming call activities found within passive mobile positioning data. Eesti Pank (the central bank of Estonia) has been using these data and methodology since 2008 to calculate the national balance of payments and publish tourism statistics. Statistics obtained from mobile positioning data are herein compared with statistics on accommodation. Results indicate that positioning data enables the generation of detailed statistics on tourism, and for inbound visits, there is a strong correlation with official statistics on accommodation.

Are younger age groups less segregated? Measuring ethnic segregation in activity spaces using mobile phone data

ABSTRACTBoth assimilation theory and common sense suggest that the longer the immigrants reside in a host society, the more they become integrated. However, studies conducted in many countries show the opposite: younger generations of immigrants are more segregated than their parents. The aim of this study is to examine differences in ethnic segregation between age groups of the Estonian majority and Russian-speaking minority in Estonia. We use census data and passive mobile positioning data (CDR) to measure levels of segregation at the individual level for important activity locations and for the whole activity space. Results indicate that segregation in both places of residence and out-of-home non-employment activity districts is higher in younger than in older age groups. Measures of activity space show that the activity spaces of Russian-speakers of all age groups are smaller and less diverse than those of Estonians, and are mainly bound to the places of residence of Russian-speakers. The differences between the activity space measures for Estonians and Russian-speakers generally reduce with age, which suggests higher ethnic segregation in younger age groups. The results thus show that, contrary to assimilation theory, the spatial behaviour of Russian-speakers has not become similar to that of Estonians over generations.

Mapping changes of residence with passive mobile positioning data: the case of Estonia

ABSTRACTSimilar to every process involving quantitative research, the study of migration heavily depends on the data available for analysis. The available movement data limit the type of questions that can be asked, and as a result, certain aspects of human spatial mobility have yet to be examined. The development of information and communication technologies and their widespread adoption offers new datasets, methods and interpretations that make it possible to study social processes at a new level. For example, mobile positioning data can aid in overcoming certain constraints embedded in traditional data sources (such as censuses or questionnaires) for study of the connections between daily mobility and change of residence. This study presents a framework for mapping changes of residence using data from passive mobile positioning and an anchor point model to better understand the limits of these methods and their contribution to understanding long-term mobility. The study concludes that the most important considerations in monitoring change of residence using passive mobile position data include the continuity of the time-series data, the varying structure of the mobile tower network and the diversified nature of human mobility. The fine spatial and temporal granularities of passive mobile positioning data allow us to study human movement at a detailed scale.

Trajectory reconstruction from mobile positioning data using cell-to-cell travel time information

This paper proposes a technique for improving the accuracy of mobile device movement trajectory reconstruction using passive mobile positioning data. The major sources of uncertainty in trajectory reconstruction are imprecise cell shape data and ‘ping-pong’ effects caused by cell handovers. We used a novel technique for improved ‘ping-pong’ effect suppression by compensating for some cell shape distortions based on temporal cell-to-cell transit statistics. The results were evaluated by estimating traffic flow using trajectory reconstruction. The proposed technique improved the accuracy of results compared to ‘ping-pong’ suppression algorithms found in the literature.

Analysis of the pattern and intensity of urban activities through aggregate cellphone usage

This study applies passive mobile positioning data such as Call Volume, Handover, and Erlang to detect the spatiotemporal distributions of urban activities. We obtained hourly aggregated cellphone data from a dataset of communications in Lisbon, Portugal. Fuzzy c-mean clustering algorithm was applied to the cellphone data to create clusters of locations with similar features in two aspects of activities: the pattern and intensity of urban activities along the hours of a day. In order to validate those clusters as actual predictors of human activity, we compared them with clusters formed using ground truth variables namely presence of people, buildings, points of interest, and bus and taxi movement. To identify the patterns of urban activities, the Erlang data provided a better match, with the ground truth giving 69% of overall accurate predictions. In the case of the intensity of activities, Handover data provided the highest match, with the ground truth yielding 80% of overall accuracy of predictions. Hence, the results demonstrate the potential of passive mobile positioning data in detecting intensity of activities that are superimposed on the different activity patterns, which is a fundamental piece of information for transportation and urban planning.

Country as a Free Sample: The Ability of Tourism Events to Generate Repeat Visits. Case Study with Mobile Positioning Data in Estonia

This study explores the long-term effect of events in destination marketing: the ability of events to generate repeat visits to a particular area. From this point of view, events can be treated as the free sampling method in destination marketing. When a person visits an event, they also ‘get a taste’ of the area in which it is taking place. And if this experience is positive, the probability of them returning later specifically to explore the area should rise. The aim of this study is to quantify the long- term effect of events in destination marketing. We analysed the post-event behaviour of more than 56,000 visitors of almost 143 small and medium-sized sports and cultural events that took place in Estonia during the years 2006-2009. We applied passive mobile positioning data in this study:. This is data, which is automatically recorded in the memory files of mobile operators. Mobile positioning enabled us to study visitors’ behaviour in greater detail, both temporally and spatially. The main theoretical contributions of this study are: (1) that events are able to generate repeat visits and therefore have a long-term effect in the context of destination marketing; and (2) that this ability is dependent on the type and regularity of events. For destination managers and governments this study provides a number of suggestions on how to make more effective use of events in destination marketing.

Evaluating the Travel Distances of Events Visitors and Regular Visitors Using Mobile Positioning Data: The Case of Estonia

Event tourism has become an important economic component of modern tourism, given the growing numbers of visitors and the development of local communities that it entails. This study examines whether the distances traveled by foreign visitors to events differ from those traveled by non-event (i.e., regular) visitors, and which factors influence such distances. We use passive mobile positioning data obtained from visitors to 145 events in Estonia (119,288 visits) and from a comparison group of regular visitors (199,859 visits) between 2006 and 2009. The results show that events visitors come from nearer locations than regular visitors; similarly to regular visitors, the distance decay principle applies in case of events visitors; and that events bring more visitors from more distant countries in the off-season (winter).

Using Mobile Positioning Data to Model Locations Meaningful to Users of Mobile Phones

The article introduces a model for the location of meaningful places for mobile telephone users, such as home and work anchor points, using passive mobile positioning data. Passive mobile positioning data is secondary data concerning the location of call activities or handovers in network cells that is automatically stored in the memory of service providers. This data source offers good potential for the monitoring of the geography and mobility of the population, since mobile phones are widespread, and similar standardized data can be used around the globe. We developed the model and tested it with 12 months' data collected by EMT, Estonia's largest mobile service provider, covering more than 0.5 million anonymous respondents. Modeling results were compared with population register data; this revealed that the developed model described the geography of the population relatively well, and can hence be used in geographical and urban studies. This approach also has potential for the development of location-based services such as targeting services or geographical infrastructure.

Evaluating passive mobile positioning data for tourism surveys: An Estonian case study

This paper introduces the applicability of passive mobile positioning data in studying tourism. Passive mobile positioning data is automatically stored in the memory files of mobile operators for call activities or movements of handsets in the network. For tourism studies we use database of the locations of roaming (foreign phones) call activities in network cells: the location, time, random ID and country of origin of the called phone. We describe the peculiarities of data, data gathering, sampling, the handling of the spatial database and some analysis methods, using examples from Estonia. The results proved that mobile positioning data has valuable applications for geographical studies. Correlations with conventional accommodation statistics in Estonia were up to 0.99 in the most commonly visited tourist regions. Correlations of positioning data with accommodation statistics were lower in regions with a high number of transit tourists and less tourism infrastructure. The results show that positioning data has advantages: data can be collected for larger spatial units and in less visited areas; spatial and temporal preciseness is higher than for regular tourism statistics. Random IDs allow one to study tourists’ movements, for example to study typical routes of tourists of certain nationalities. The weaknesses of data are related to problems with accessing data, as operators do not wish to share data and because of privacy and surveillance concerns. Problem is also that positioning data is another quantitative dataset with limited features.