Table Of ContentSPRINGER BRIEFS IN APPLIED SCIENCES AND
TECHNOLOGY POLIMI SPRINGER BRIEFS
Paola Pucci
Fabio Manfredini
Paolo Tagliolato
Mapping Urban
Practices Through
Mobile Phone
Data
SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences
and Technology
PoliMI SpringerBriefs
Editorial Board
Barbara Pernici, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy
Stefano Della Torre, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy
Bianca M. Colosimo, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy
Tiziano Faravelli, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy
Roberto Paolucci, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy
Silvia Piardi, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11159
http://www.polimi.it
Paola Pucci Fabio Manfredini Paolo Tagliolato
(cid:129) (cid:129)
Mapping Urban
Practices Through
Mobile Phone Data
123
PaolaPucci PaoloTagliolato
Architecture andUrban Studies IstitutoperilRilevamentoElettromagnetico
Politecnico diMilano dell’Ambiente (IREA)
Milan CNR
Italy Milan
Italy
FabioManfredini
Architecture andUrban Studies and
Politecnico diMilano
Milan Istitutodi ScienzeMarine (ISMAR)
Italy CNR
Venice
Italy
ISSN 2191-530X ISSN 2191-5318 (electronic)
SpringerBriefs inApplied Sciencesand Technology
ISSN 2282-2577 ISSN 2282-2585 (electronic)
PoliMI SpringerBriefs
ISBN 978-3-319-14832-8 ISBN 978-3-319-14833-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-14833-5
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2015930731
SpringerChamHeidelbergNewYorkDordrechtLondon
©TheAuthor(s)2015
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Acknowledgments and Remarks
This book presents the outcomes of two research projects, financed by Telecom
Italiaduringtheyears2009and2011“Utilizzazionedeidatiditelefoniamobileper
indagini territoriali” and “Stima di Matrici O/D con dati di traffico telefonico.”
This research is the result of an interdisciplinary collaboration, involving the
expertise of each author. In particular, Fabio Manfredini oversaw the representa-
tions, in GIS environment, of the variables and measures of mobile phone trends,
Paola Pucci supervised the methodological approach and the interpretation of
mobile phone traffic data with respect to the territorial dynamics, while Paolo
Tagliolatooversawdataminingandstatisticalanalysisofmobilephonetrafficdata.
Ourresearchhasgreatlybenefitedfromtheveryvaluablecomments,supervision
andcollaborationofPaoloBeria,PaoloDilda,CarmeloDiRosa,PiercesareSecchi,
Simone Vantini, Eugenio Morello, researchers at the Politecnico di Milano, and
Barbara Boschiroli.
We would like to acknowledge Piero Lovisolo, Massimo Colonna and Dario
Parata, T-lab Telecom Italia fortheircollaborationandsupportduringtheresearch
projects.
We are also very grateful to the reviewers for their comments.
v
Contents
1 Mobility Practices and Mobile Phone Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 How and Why Should We Interpret Mobile
Practices in the Contemporary City. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 The Challenges for Analytical Tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2 Mobile Phone Data to Describe Urban Practices:
An Overview in the Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.1 About Mobile Phone Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.2 The Social Positioning Method and Its Possible
Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
2.3 Mobile Phone Measures and Population Distribution
in Cities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.4 The Classification of Urban Spaces According
to Mobile Phone Uses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3 Daily Mobility Practices Through Mobile Phone Data:
An Application in Lombardy Region. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.1 Methodology: Operational Impacts of Three Types
of Mobile Phone Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.2 Erlang Data: Densities of Use of the City in the Milan
Urban Region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3.2.1 The Macro Scale: Assessing Correlation
Between Population Presence and Erlang Values. . . . . . . 34
3.2.2 The Macro Scale: Treelet Decomposition
of Erlang Trends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.2.3 The Micro Scale Analysis and Its Relevance. . . . . . . . . . 41
3.2.4 An International Event Transforming the Use
of the City: The Milan International Design Week. . . . . . 49
vii
viii Contents
3.3 Aggregated Tracks of Mobile Phone Users: The Experiential
Dimensions of Commuting Rhythms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.4 MSC: Monitoring Visitors and Tourists Through Mobile
Phone Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
3.4.1 Foreigners’ Trends and Evidence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
3.4.2 Monitoring Visitors During a Big Event. . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
4 Implications for Traditional Data Sources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
5 Implications for Urban and Mobility Policy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Subject Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Chapter 1
Mobility Practices and Mobile Phone Data
Abstract This chapter introduces the debate on the role of spatial mobility in
describing and assessing urban changes. In accordance with the practice in an
established literature, therole of mobilitywill be discussed asa keyfor describing
the forms and the extent of different life practices and consumption patterns, pro-
ducing diversified uses of the city. This is a necessary framework for an under-
standingofthechallengesthatthenewdatasources—suchasmobilephonedata—
have to meet in order to interpret users’ practices and behaviours, described in the
realmofmobility.Infact,descriptionsofthedifferentsocialdimensionshighlighted
bymobilitypracticescallfornewempiricalandanalyticalapproaches,abletobetter
capturepeople’smovements,variationinthemovertimeandspace,andthemulti-
sitednatureoftheactivities.Inthiscontext,wewillinvestigatethecontributionthat
trackingtechnologiesandmobilephonenetworkdatahavetooffer.Becauseanalysis
ofthespace-timevariabilityofurbanpracticesisdifficulttoachievewithtraditional
datasources,ourfocuswillbeontheopportunitiesandlimitsofmobilephonedata
inmappingthespatialdimensionandthedensityofuseofthecityanditsservices.
(cid:1) (cid:1) (cid:1) (cid:1)
Keywords Mobilities Urban rhythms Contemporary city Analytical tools
New sources
Our research focuses on the potentialities offered by mobile phone data in the
interpretationofmobilitypracticesandrhythmsofuseofthecontemporarycityby
different urban populations.
Thechallengeistodescribethedifferentdimensionsofmobilityanditsrhythms
inurbanspaces,anditisthisthatcharacterizesourapproach,notlimitedtotryingto
validate mobile data, but attempting to interpret them from the point of view of
urban transformation processes in which mobility is an effective return.
In this way, the debate on the role of mobility in the contemporary city is a
necessary framework for an understanding of the challenges that the new data
sources—suchasmobilephonedata—arenowhavingtofaceininterpretingurban
changes,comprehensionofwhichismadepossiblebystudyingtheroutinizationof
PaolaPucciistheauthorofthischapter.
©TheAuthor(s)2015 1
P.Puccietal.,MappingUrbanPracticesThroughMobilePhoneData,
PoliMISpringerBriefs,DOI10.1007/978-3-319-14833-5_1
2 1 MobilityPracticesandMobilePhoneData
site practices that follow their own rhythms1 of appearance and disappearance
(Amin and Thrift 2002).
Because analysis of the space-time variability of urban practices is difficult to
achieve with traditional data sources, our focus will be on the opportunities and
limitsofmobilephonedatainmappingthespatialdimensionandthedensityofuse
of the city and its services.
The nature of mobile phone data provides the longitudinal activity patterns of
network cells, rather than individual users. This is why our research focused on
aggregate behaviours related to the intensity of mobile phone use, implying con-
sideration of telephone traffic data as the effect of individual behaviour and habits.
These data become information about the user behaviours and thus about the
characteristicsofaterritory,whichvariesindensitiesofusesandpopulations,over
time. In this perspective, the maps produced with mobile phone data represent the
territories defined by “communities of practice”2 (Wenger 1998), detected by
mobile phone data.
1.1 How and Why Should We Interpret Mobile Practices
in the Contemporary City
Urban mobility is one of the challenges that cities face, with massive material and
immaterial investments in the future.
Knowing the intensity and the rhythms of the mobility practices becomes a
necessaryconditiontoensureefficiency,livabilityandequityintheorganizationof
everyday lives.
Analysisofmobilitypracticesisimportantnotonlyinrelationtothechangesin
thedynamicsofspatialmobilityoverthelast20years,butgoesbacktotheroleof
mobilities as a useful fact-finding tool to describe urban transformations in times
and in places, according to personal social life and work programs, as well as
constituting a structural element of contemporary cities.
Forsomeyears,anestablishedliterature(Ehrenberg1995;Urry2000;Urry2007;
Kaufmann 2002; Ascher 2004; Bourdin 2005; Scheller and Urry 2006; Cresswell
2006),hasdrawnattentiontotheroleofspatialmobilityasakeyfor“understanding
the connections, assemblages, and practices that both frame and generate
1 BorrowingfromtheworkofLefebvre,AminandThriftarguethattherhythmsofthecityare
“the coordinates through which inhabitants and visitors frame and order the urban experience”
(AminandThrift2002,p.17).
2 Wenger’sconcept(1998)“communitiesofpractice”isemployedtofocusattentiononthefact
thaturbanpopulationscannotbereducedtopredefinedandfixedcategoriesduetothephenomenon
bywhichtheybelongtomultiplecategories.Forthisreasonitisimportanttoconsiderpopulations
notasstaticcategories(inhabitants,commuters,cityusers,etc.),butas“groupsofsubjectsthat,
temporarilyandintermittently,sharepracticesofdailylife”(Pasqui2008,p.148).Hencetheycan
beconsidered“communitiesofpractice”thatgenerateparticularspace-timegeographies.
