Unveiling the pandemic's impact on visits to Madrid’s parks: insights from mobile phone data analysis

Abstract

Changes in human mobility due to the COVID-19 pandemic have particularly impacted urban parks, altering their use patterns. The use of Big Data sources enables the quantification and tracking of changes, although few studies delve into their spatial representation and the socio-demographic characterisation of park users. In this research, we use anonymised cellular network-based data with associated user profile information to quantify and map the changes operated in trips to Madrid’s urban parks in a week of reference before and after the pandemic. Our results show a general decrease in trips to urban parks, especially by males in all age ranges. We also observe a marked decrease in trips by the high-income population. Finally, we have nicely presented some of these results in a composition of several maps that provide visual insight into the main changes.