Mobile phone data from carriers like Sprint and Verizon can be used to derive 24/7 operational origin-destination (OD) matrices showing travel patterns. A pilot study in Sacramento used encrypted Sprint data to identify over 280,000 trips which were mapped to traffic analysis zones to generate hourly OD matrices. These matrices were refined using traffic assignment and counts with results having R-squared values over 0.85. Further research opportunities exist to analyze trip modes, activity chains, and travel behavior changes over time using continuous mobile phone data observations.
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MobileOD: travel patterns from large scale mobile phone data
1. Deriving 24/7 Operational OD Matrices
From AirSage Mobile Phone Data
Sacramento Pilot Study and Beyond
October 2011
Jingtao Ma, PhD, PE,
Mygistics, Inc.
2. Agenda
Brief overview of OD derivation methodology and techniques
AirSage data processing
MobileOD pilot for Sacramento, CA
Pre-processing: sample trips
Projection based on CTPP survey data
Hourly Vehicular OD (path flow) refinement based on static traffic
assignment
Vehicular path flow estimation based on observed path choice
Path matching
Path flow aggregation
OD estimation (TFlowFuzzy) from path flows
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3. Traditional Methods for Operational OD Derivation
Travel demand model:
Calculated, not observed and thus only as good as the model itself
Only a fixed point snapshot of the mobility pattern
Active probing: Automated number plate recognition (ANPR) or Bluetooth
MAC matching
Potentially more accurate, but usually case by case on a small scale
Relatively slow turnaround
Very expensive
Passive probing: GPS based navigation devices
Small samples
Biased towards fleets and are thus not representative of a communitys
travel patterns
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4. OD Derivation Methods: Why Mobile OD?
Mobile OD: travel pattern inference from mobile phone traces
also a passive probing method
In general:
Sprint
High device penetration: >85% conservatively estimated
(285M devices/308M population in US)
Wide overage
Ubiquitous usage
Travel patterns could be
Verizon
Weekday versus weekend
Seasonal variation, special events
Work trips/non work trips
Continuous OD at fine grain spatial/temporal resolutions
What is offered to clients
Off-the-shelf 24/7 operational OD
Add-on survey tool for household surveys as alternative to traditional
GPS tracking
Long-distance, inter-regional, external-external travel data 4
5. How AirSage Technology Works
AirSage patented WiSETM platform transforms normal operational signaling data
from wireless carriers into real-time and historical location and movement data.
CDMA network techonology: Sprint & Verizon
Currently 35 million Sprint devices in US; 90 million Verizon devices to be added
6. Operational 24/7 MobileOD Workflow
AirSage Public NAVTEQ Various Sources
Mobile Sightings Socio-economics Navigation Net Traffic Detectors
Trips Block groups Model Traffic
Paths Travel survey network counts
Projected
Mobile based OD
Path flow
Mygistics/PTV Operational
proprietary 24/7 MobileOD
7. Sacramento Pilot: Project Background
Customer Fehr & Peers Associates
I-80/CA-65 Interchange improvement
project
Study period: 6-10AM, and 3-7PM
A lengthy process was originally
proposed for demand estimation
Initial discussion at TRB 2011
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8. Sacramento Pilot: Mobile Phone Data
Encrypted Sprint subscribers data
from one mobile switch coverage
area for October 2010
Total mobile sightings: 256 million
(255,828,842)
Filtered and analyzed: 98 million
Subscribers: more than128 thousand
400,000 sightings from 600 randomly
selected subscribers
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9. Snowball Trip Identification and Analysis System
(STIAS)
An Expert System
Rule-based knowledge base
Inference engine
20+ rules, one inference engine
Mygistics proprietary
11. STIAS: Benchmark & Validation
Do these numbers apply to the entire dataset?
For these samples: 280 versus 113 (MYG alg 0.4.1 vs. AirSage Known Trips)
Factor of 2.47
For the entire Sacramento dataset: 2.20 million vs. 1.04 million
Factor of 2.12
The sample benchmarking favored Myg-alg 0.4.1 a little, but not too much
Mygistics currently working on version 0.5, hopefully to get to the point of 90+% of
trips identifiable by human eyes
Which will bring to the same level of factor 2.5
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12. OD Matrices from STIAS
Identified trips mapped to TAZs
Hourly aggregate over all weekdays
of October 2010
288 thousand (non-zero) active O-D
pairs
1070 active TAZ
1.14 million OD pairs
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13. Path Matching (Trajectories)
Path search & enumeration from VISUM
For Sacramento, 65 million paths
stored for query
GIS functions in PostGIS assisted in path
matching
Shortest distance from via points to
candidate paths
Selected the most likely one(s)
Using observed paths for OD refinement
improves accuracy and requires fewer
counts
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14. Sacramento Pilot: Results
Sample OD from identified trips mapped to TAZs
OD projection based on CTPP survey to generate better seed matrix
TFlowFuzzy (OD refinement in VISUM) (8x1h)
Traffic assignment and matrix verification
R^2 RMSE(%)
6AM 0.92 42
7AM 0.94 26
8AM 0.91 26
9AM 0.91 28
3PM 0.87 30
4PM 0.86 30
5PM 0.86 29
6PM 0.86 30
(Link/turn counts vs. model volume after matrix refinement) 14
15. Market Response to Date
Ongoing projects, proposals, request for information
Positive feedback for the
Sacramento pilot project
Active discussion on social media
(LinkedIn groups, ITS America,
etc.)
Inquiries for new proposals and
projects
Interest from researchers,
consultants and government
agencies
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16. The beginning of the more research and applications
Ongoing projects, proposals, request for information
24/7 hourly OD
matrices
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17. The beginning of the more research and applications
Ongoing projects, proposals, request for information
24/7 hourly OD
matrices
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18. OD Matrices Analysis
Identified trips mapped to TAZs
Hourly aggregate over all
weekdays of October 2010
597,529 for Mobile OD (block group
level for two months data)
(non-zero) active O-D pairs
308,988 for weekdays
102,571 for weekends
158,617 for event days
Active OD Pairs Sample Size Internal + Paths/Active OD
External=Num of Pair (Internal/
Paths External)
Weekdays 289,059+1992 51.7% 41 days 270,661+245,851=5 1.95 (0.93/12.3)
9=308,988 16,512
Weekends 82,642+19,929 17.2% 16 days 27,771+84,075=111 1.85 (0.34/4.2)
=102,571 ,846
Event Days 138,688+19,92 26.5% 4 days 21,222+80,795=102 1.92 (0.15/4.1)
9=158,617 ,017
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19. The beginning of the more research and applications
Ongoing projects, proposals, request for information
Trip mode
inference
Activity chain
and tour
imputation
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20. The beginning of the more research and applications
Ongoing projects, proposals, request for information
Travel behavior
change from
continuous
observations
and more yet
to explore
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21. Mygistics MobileOD
Full OD trip tables, not OD samples
24 hourly matrices for 7 days a week
Census block group resolution (custom zone structure
possible)
Internal, external/internal and external/external trips
Survey add-on tools (on-board survey, household survey)
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22. Contact
Jingtao Ma
jma@mygistics.com
503-575-2191 ext 2802
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