Exploring Spatial-Temporal Patterns of Urban Human Mobility Hotspots

Xiping Yang, Zhiyuan Zhao and Shiwei Lu
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Xiping Yang: State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping, Remote and Sensing, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, China
Zhiyuan Zhao: State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping, Remote and Sensing, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, China
Shiwei Lu: State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping, Remote and Sensing, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, China

Sustainability, 2016, vol. 8, issue 7, 1-18

Abstract: Understanding human mobility patterns provides us with knowledge about human mobility in an urban context, which plays a critical role in urban planning, traffic management and the spread of disease. Recently, the availability of large-scale human-sensing datasets enables us to analyze human mobility patterns and the relationships between humans and their living environments on an unprecedented spatial and temporal scale to improve decision-making regarding the quality of life of citizens. This study aims to characterize the urban spatial-temporal dynamic from the perspective of human mobility hotspots by using mobile phone location data. We propose a workflow to identify human convergent and dispersive hotspots that represent the status of human mobility in local areas and group these hotspots into different classes according to clustering their temporal signatures. To illustrate our proposed approach, a case study of Shenzhen, China, has been conducted. Six typical spatial-temporal patterns in the city are identified and discussed by combining the spatial distribution of these identified patterns with urban functional areas. The findings enable us to understand the human dynamics in a different area of the city, which can serve as a reference for urban planning and traffic management.

Keywords: kernel density estimation; mobile phone location data; human mobility; spatial-temporal patterns (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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