Activity-Aware Map: Identifying Human Daily Activity Pattern Using Mobile Phone Data

Being able to understand dynamics of human mobility is essential for urban planning and transportation management. Besides geographic space, in this paper, we characterize mobility in a profile-based space (activity-aware map) that describes most probable activity associated with a specific area of space. This, in turn, allows us to capture the individual daily activity pattern and analyze the correlations among different people’s work area’s profile. Based on a large mobile phone data of nearly one million records of the users in the central Metro-Boston area, we find a strong correlation in daily activity patterns within the group of people who share a common work area’s profile. In addition, within the group itself, the similarity in activity patterns decreases as their work places become apart.