Daily mobility practices through mobile phone data: An application in lombardy region

Abstract

Beginning with the results of a research carried out in the Italian region of Lombardy utilising mobile phone data provided by Telecom Italia, this chapter will demonstrate how new maps, based on mobile phone data and better tailored to the dynamic processes taking place, can represent spatialized urban practices and origin-destination flows of daily movements. Three different types of mobile phone data were employed in the analysis of complex temporal and spatial patterns. The first data type concerns the mobile phone traffic registered by the network over the entire Lombardy Region (Northern Italy). Data are expressed in Erlang, a measure of the density of calls. The second typology of data consists in localized and aggregated tracks of anonymized mobile phone users. It is an origin-destination datum derived from the Call Detail Record database. The third type of data refers to the mobile switching centre (MSC), which is the primary service delivery node for GSM, responsible for routing voice calls and text messages. With the maps based on the processing of the three types of mobile phone data, it was possible to offer information on temporary populations and city usage patterns (daily/nightly practices, non-systematic mobility).