Mobile network as a prospective source of information on the spatial distribution and mobility of the population

Martin Šveda, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Comenius University in Bratislava, Institute of Geography Slovak Academy of Sciences, Slovak Republic

Type of article: informative article
Pages: 77 – 92

Abstract

Mobile devices have become a ubiquitous and integral part of our daily lives. Through them, we leave increasingly precise and diverse digital footprints. This paper presents the fundamental characteristics of mobile network data during their processing for the purpose of analyzing population distribution and mobility. As a matter of principle, mobile network data can be categorized into two groups: passive and active. The former has significant potential for exploratory research in the field of spatio-temporal behavior of the population, as by means of appropriate processing we can extract meaningful information about the regular localizations of a substantial part of the population from millions of records in the mobile network.

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