IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envirb/v33y2006i5p727-748.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mobile Landscapes: Using Location Data from Cell Phones for Urban Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Carlo Ratti
  • Dennis Frenchman
  • Riccardo Maria Pulselli

    (Department of Chemical and Biosystem Sciences, University of Siena, Italy)

  • Sarah Williams

    (Spatial Information Design Laboratory, 1172 Amsterdam Avenue, 400 Avery Hall, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA)

Abstract

The technology for determining the geographic location of cell phones and other handheld devices is becoming increasingly available. It is opening the way to a wide range of applications, collectively referred to as location-based services (LBS), that are primarily aimed at individual users. However, if deployed to retrieve aggregated data in cities, LBS could become a powerful tool for urban analysis. In this paper we aim to review and introduce the potential of this technology to the urban planning community. In addition, we present the ‘Mobile Landscapes' project: an application in the metropolitan area of Milan, Italy, based on the geographical mapping of cell phone usage at different times of the day. The results enable a graphic representation of the intensity of urban activities and their evolution through space and time. Finally, a number of future applications are discussed and their potential for urban studies and planning is assessed.

Suggested Citation

  • Carlo Ratti & Dennis Frenchman & Riccardo Maria Pulselli & Sarah Williams, 2006. "Mobile Landscapes: Using Location Data from Cell Phones for Urban Analysis," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 33(5), pages 727-748, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirb:v:33:y:2006:i:5:p:727-748
    DOI: 10.1068/b32047
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/b32047
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/b32047?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Steenbruggen, John & Tranos, Emmanouil & Nijkamp, Peter, 2015. "Data from mobile phone operators: A tool for smarter cities?," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 335-346.
    2. Williams, Sarah & White, Adam & Waiganjo, Peter & Orwa, Daniel & Klopp, Jacqueline, 2015. "The digital matatu project: Using cell phones to create an open source data for Nairobi's semi-formal bus system," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 39-51.
    3. Beibei Yu & Zhonghui Wang & Haowei Mu & Li Sun & Fengning Hu, 2019. "Identification of Urban Functional Regions Based on Floating Car Track Data and POI Data," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(23), pages 1-18, November.
    4. Kang Wu & Jingxian Tang & Ying Long, 2019. "Delineating the Regional Economic Geography of China by the Approach of Community Detection," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(21), pages 1-18, October.
    5. Wenlai Wang & Tao Pei & Jie Chen & Ci Song & Xi Wang & Hua Shu & Ting Ma & Yunyan Du, 2019. "Population Distributions of Age Groups and Their Influencing Factors Based on Mobile Phone Location Data: A Case Study of Beijing, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-19, December.
    6. Fabio Manfredini & Paola Pucci & Paolo Tagliolato, 2014. "Toward a Systemic Use of Manifold Cell Phone Network Data for Urban Analysis and Planning," Journal of Urban Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(2), pages 39-59, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envirb:v:33:y:2006:i:5:p:727-748. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.