Uncovering stable and occasional human mobility patterns: A case study of the Beijing subway

Nuo Yong, Shunjiang Ni, Shifei Shen, Peng Chen and Xuewei Ji

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2018, vol. 492, issue C, 28-38

Abstract: There have generally been two kinds of approaches to the empirical study of human mobility. At the group level, some valuable information might be submerged in statistical noise, while due to the diversity of individual purpose and preference, there is still no general statistical regularity of human mobility at the individual level. In this paper, we considered group-level human mobility as the combination of several basic patterns and analyzed the collective mobility by category. Utilizing matrix factorization and correlation analysis, we extracted some of the stable/occasional components from the collective human mobility in the Beijing subway and found that the departure and arrival mobility patterns have different characteristics, both in time and space, under various conditions. We classified individual records into different patterns and analyzed the most likely trip distance by category. The proposed method can decompose stable/occasional mobility patterns from the collective mobility and identify passengers belonging to different patterns, helping us to better understand the origin of different mobility patterns and provide guidance for emergency management of large crowds.

Keywords: Human mobility; Matrix factorization; Correlation coefficient; Urban subway (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:492:y:2018:i:c:p:28-38

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2017.09.082

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