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Our company was among the first in Italy to invest in the use of big data applied to mobility. We started with the development of algorithms for the use of FCD (Floating Car Data) obtained from onboard monitoring systems for vehicles for insurance purposes. These algorithms analyze mobility patterns, trip chains, parking dynamics, customer patterns, catchment areas, calibrate atmospheric and acoustic emission models, estimate traffic flows, and reconstruct origin-destination matrices. The results have been tested for a decade, in parallel with traditional surveys in numerous applications, collecting more than reassuring data on their reliability and recognizing their added value for the precision and profiling of movements.
Today, this source is complemented by the use of matrices based on big data derived from mobile telephony. Mobile telephony big data relies on mobile network traffic data to analyze user movements. The sample represented is far superior to traditional survey techniques both for the ability to easily analyze longer periods—entire months rather than typical weekday/holiday—and for having a larger set of information available for mobility analysis thanks to its different profiling.
We are talking about databases that store information related to movements in a particular study area for a specific time window, such as:
• Origin and Destination Traffic Zone,
• Frequency of movement in the chosen period, day (weekday/pre-holiday/holiday),
• Departure time slot of the movement,
• Means of transport used.
All information can be filtered, making it possible to obtain clustering with a high level of detail compared to traditional techniques used so far, also in relation to the sample size that this data allows.
Another qualifying element is that the zoning adopted extends to the entire Italian national territory: the database is therefore populated also with movements external to the study area, i.e., movements that, although having both origin and destination within the study area, cross it.
All this allows for an enormous amount of information useful for accurately reconstructing the mobility dynamics in the study area.
The main applications of this innovative methodology using mobile telephony big data have already been utilized for: Regions of Abruzzo, Basilicata, Tuscany, Apulia and Aosta Valley; the Autonomous Province of Bolzano, the metropolitan cities of Naples and Palermo, the municipalities of Latina and Parma and Venice Airport.