Abstract
This chapter focuses on the potentialities offered by mobile phone data in reading the site practices and rhythms of usage of the contemporary city, providing a research framework of the most promising approaches. Research approaches using ICT and aggregated cellular network log files to identify fine-grained variations in urban movements are presented to argue how mobile phone data can be treated as a useful source of information on the real use of cities. Because of the pervasiveness guaranteed by the ubiquity of mobile phone networks, this chapter shows how these datasets can overcome limitations in the detection of latency, typical of traditional data sources , while also providing valuable information on temporary urban populations . Referring to the outcomes of research on passive and anonymous monitoring of cell phone traffic (i.e. Social Positioning Method , Mobile Landscape and Real Time Monitoring, Automated Land Use Identification), we illustrate the potential and the challenges of these data source in complementing more traditional survey methods.
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- 2.
Erlang data are the average number of concurrent contacts in a time unit. The Erlang data provided by Telecom Italia describe the density of mobile phone traffic every 15 minutes across areas measuring 250 × 250 meters.
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Handover refers to the process of transferring an ongoing call or data session from one antenna to another. It, therefore, provides information on the movement of mobile phone users through the network.
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In Estonia mobile data have been used since 2008 for calculation of the balance of payment travel item of the national central bank (Position LBS 2014).
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Persons carrying the mobile phone (possibly anonymous), space coordinates x and y, the third height dimension (will be added in a near feature), and finally time coordinates z.
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Senseable City Lab is a laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, supervised by Carlo Ratti, which took the form of a consortium to collaborate with private and public partners. http://senseable.mit.edu.
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Telecom Italia is the leading Italian telecommunications company, supplying Italian and international fixed telephone services, mobile phone services, Internet and cable television.
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AT&T Inc. is a phone company based in San Antonio, Texas with head office in the USA.
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http://reality.media.mit.edu by Nathan Eagle.
- 10.
http://currentcity.org by Euro Beinat, Assaf Biderman, Francesco Calabrese, Filippo Dal Fiore, Carlo Ratti, Andrea Vaccari.
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Pucci, P., Manfredini, F., Tagliolato, P. (2015). Mobile Phone Data to Describe Urban Practices: An Overview in the Literature. In: Mapping Urban Practices Through Mobile Phone Data. SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14833-5_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14833-5_2
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