Mobile phone usage in complex urban systems: a space–time, aggregated human activity study

The present study aims to demonstrate the importance of digital data for investigating space–time dynamics of aggregated human activity in urban systems. Such dynamics can be monitored and modelled using data from mobile phone operators regarding mobile telephone usage. Using such an extensive dataset from the city of Amsterdam, this paper introduces space–time explanatory models of aggregated human activity patterns. Various modelling experiments and results are presented, which demonstrate that mobile telephone data are a good proxy of the space–time dynamics of aggregated human activity in the city.