Abstract:
Location data collected from mobile phone users
provide an ideal platform to generate human mobility patterns.
These patterns give us insights into how people travel in their dayto-
day lives.With availability of cellular data, either at large-scale
but with low location accuracy or at small-scale but with high
location accuracy, studying mobility patterns is now possible. An
example of former dataset is CDRs (Call Detail Records) and
that of latter is GSM/WiFi/GPS traces collected from mobile
phones. So far the studies have been focused on data collected
in developed countries.
In this paper, we make a first attempt in finding and analyzing
mobility patterns of people in developing countries using both the
categories of data. We use publicly available CDR data and we
collect our own data for capturing fine-grained location. Ours is
the first dataset of its kind that is publicly available. We analyze
this data to find movement as well as place visiting patterns,
compare our findings with existing studies, and discuss their
implications. For example, urban people in developing countries
travel farther distances in their day to day life as compared
to people living in non-urban areas. Also, distance travelled by
urban people in developing countries is as much as six times
lower compared to developed countries.
