Phone tracking shows 100,000 peoples' movements

Study reveals we're all really quite dull

6 June 2008 16:23 GMT / By Katie Scott

Well it seems we're all creatures of habit.

A new study has tracked the movements of 100,000 mobile phone users in an unnamed European country in a bid to build a comprehensive picture of human movements.

And the results revealed that that we will visit the same places over and over again, and actually move less than 10km on a regular basis.

The 100,000 individuals were picked randomly from a sample of more than six million phone users but where, the team won't reveal.

Each time a participant made or received a text or phone call, the location of their nearest telecoms tower was recorded.

Each tower serves an area of approximately 3 sq km.

The project went on for 6 months but, say the scientists, after just 3, participants' pattern of movement were revealed.

"The vast majority of people move around over a very short distance - around five to 10km", explained Professor Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, a member of the team.

"Then there were a few that moved a couple of hundred kilometres on a regular basis."

Not only this but our habits are all very similar to each other, which Barabasi says, could make research easier for other teams in the future.

"Why is this good news?" he asked. "If I were to build a model of how everyone moves in society and they were not similar then it would require six billion different models - each person would require a different description."

Now, modellers have a basic rule book to follow, he said.

"This intrinsic similarity between individuals is very exciting and it has practical applications", said Professor Barabasi.

The study has now been published in the journal Nature, and it is hoped that it could be used for purposes as varied as helping prevent outbreaks of disease or forecast traffic.

"It would be wonderful if every [mobile] carrier could give universities access to their data because it's so rich", Dr Marta Gonzalez of Northeastern University, Boston, MA, and one of the authors of the paper told the BBC.

Full tags

Phones, Mobile phones, Statistics