The scales of human mobility
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The scales of human mobility. / Alessandretti, Laura; Aslak, Ulf; Lehmann, Sune.
I: Nature, Bind 587, Nr. 7834, 2020, s. 402-407.Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
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TY - JOUR
T1 - The scales of human mobility
AU - Alessandretti, Laura
AU - Aslak, Ulf
AU - Lehmann, Sune
N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2020, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - There is a contradiction at the heart of our current understanding of individual and collective mobility patterns. On the one hand, a highly influential body of literature on human mobility driven by analyses of massive empirical datasets finds that human movements show no evidence of characteristic spatial scales. There, human mobility is described as scale free1–3. On the other hand, geographically, the concept of scale—referring to meaningful levels of description from individual buildings to neighbourhoods, cities, regions and countries—is central for the description of various aspects of human behaviour, such as socioeconomic interactions, or political and cultural dynamics4,5. Here we resolve this apparent paradox by showing that day-to-day human mobility does indeed contain meaningful scales, corresponding to spatial ‘containers’ that restrict mobility behaviour. The scale-free results arise from aggregating displacements across containers. We present a simple model—which given a person’s trajectory—infers their neighbourhood, city and so on, as well as the sizes of these geographical containers. We find that the containers—characterizing the trajectories of more than 700,000 individuals—do indeed have typical sizes. We show that our model is also able to generate highly realistic trajectories and provides a way to understand the differences in mobility behaviour across countries, gender groups and urban–rural areas.
AB - There is a contradiction at the heart of our current understanding of individual and collective mobility patterns. On the one hand, a highly influential body of literature on human mobility driven by analyses of massive empirical datasets finds that human movements show no evidence of characteristic spatial scales. There, human mobility is described as scale free1–3. On the other hand, geographically, the concept of scale—referring to meaningful levels of description from individual buildings to neighbourhoods, cities, regions and countries—is central for the description of various aspects of human behaviour, such as socioeconomic interactions, or political and cultural dynamics4,5. Here we resolve this apparent paradox by showing that day-to-day human mobility does indeed contain meaningful scales, corresponding to spatial ‘containers’ that restrict mobility behaviour. The scale-free results arise from aggregating displacements across containers. We present a simple model—which given a person’s trajectory—infers their neighbourhood, city and so on, as well as the sizes of these geographical containers. We find that the containers—characterizing the trajectories of more than 700,000 individuals—do indeed have typical sizes. We show that our model is also able to generate highly realistic trajectories and provides a way to understand the differences in mobility behaviour across countries, gender groups and urban–rural areas.
U2 - 10.1038/s41586-020-2909-1
DO - 10.1038/s41586-020-2909-1
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 33208961
AN - SCOPUS:85096194305
VL - 587
SP - 402
EP - 407
JO - Nature
JF - Nature
SN - 0028-0836
IS - 7834
ER -
ID: 269673567