Airsage -
airsage.com has contracts to obtain this data from Sprint and
Verizon and perhaps others. They have supplied this cellphone data to
several transportation companies for further use and analysis as well as
supplying products themselves. This is described on their website.
I know researchers in Europe who have gotten very rich data allowing
tracking of individual cellphones throughout the day without any disclosure
of the actual owner. Each time the cellphone is turned on it is assigned an
ID number which is not the cellphone number. This location can be tracked
because they must know which cell tower it is connected with at all times.
The location is reported back to the company whenever a call is made or
received or a text message is sent or received. If it is on, but not being
used, it reports every two hours to keep the cell tower location active. By
seeing where the phone is for many hours overnight the home location can be
assumed. Then, when it moves in the morning and then is steady at one
location, that is assumed to be the work location. However, there is no
guarantee this is work, it may be shopping, school, or other.
Of course, when using a "smartphone" many of the apps report back using the
GPS (or the cell tower location if the GPS is turned off) to supply the
location aware information. For example, when you use the map application,
this reports your location and speed back to report traffic conditions.
This data can be further mined to provide OD data. INRIX, TomTom, and
others use this GPS data for traffic data analysis and routing
recommendations, but it can also be used for OD. WSDOT and UW researchers
have used truck GPS data sources to determine freight bottlenecks and truck
OD and there are reports available for download.
Because these are all samples, and the purpose of the trip needs to be
assumed, there are still some further data needs, but this helps fill more
pieces of the puzzle. My experience is the cellphone data, while usually
good enough for most TAZ to TAZ movements, is not location specific enough
for a detailed TAZ system. We still don't know the actual origin and
destination due to the resolution of the cellphone data (based upon
triangulation with the towers) or we could tie that in with GIS data and
perform some very detailed analysis. For an example of the spatial
resolution, when looking at using this data for a detailed study, we
"watched" some historical data from one cellphone that was probably being
used for calls from an office that moved randomly (and sometimes what
appeared to be very quickly) over a 4 block area. This location data may
have better resolution in Europe as they use only GSM cellphones whereas in
North America we have both CDMA and GSM. I hear the location issues for
those are somewhat different but I don't know more than that.
I recommend if you want more information on cellphone data to contact
Airsage or for GPS data contact INRIX or TomTom or others. I hope this is
helpful.
Bob
*Robert Shull, PE
President
Eco Resource Management Systems Inc.
PO Box 1850
Vashon, WA 98070
206.414.8751
rshull(a)transportmodeler.com*
On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 1:38 PM, <Elaine.Murakami(a)dot.gov> wrote:
The people from Stats Netherlands said they got the
data from the
telecommunications provider, it is NOT a sample, for “all” data for a 2
week period, but they did not discuss HOW they negotiated the use of the
dataset. ****
** **
*From:* ctpp-news-bounces(a)chrispy.net [mailto:
ctpp-news-bounces(a)chrispy.net] *On Behalf Of *Krishnan Viswanathan
*Sent:* Friday, February 17, 2012 12:21 PM
*To:* ctpp-news(a)chrispy.net
*Subject:* Re: [CTPP] Elaine's notes from the January conference: Federal
Committee on Statistical Methodology****
** **
Elaine****
** **
Thanks for sharing this. One question - How did the Stats Netherlands
people get access to the data from the cellphone providers? Maybe there are
some lessons there about structuring the request and alleviating public
fears that can be useful to data collection efforts here. Or did they
select their sample and then approached the providers with explicit
permission from this sample of the cellphone customers. In general, my
impression is that overseas it is a bit easier for agencies to obtain data
than here.****
** **
Krishnan****
On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 2:41 PM, <Elaine.Murakami(a)dot.gov> wrote:****
I thought I would share my notes from this conference. FCSM is held every
2 years, and focuses on the many different surveys conducted by federal
agencies. ****
I have rarely attended, but this time, I gave a presentation about the
Transportation Secure Data Center****
http://www.nrel.gov/vehiclesandfuels/secure_transportation_data.html , of
which FHWA is the major sponsor. My attached notes do not cover my (and
Evan Burton’s) presentation.****
****
It is always interesting to see what people are trying, given that we have
so many of the same problems: cell-phone only households, incentives,
non-response, quality of response, disclosure avoidance, etc. So, even
if this post is not specifically about CTPP, there are some tidbits related
to ACS and census research at new university centers. ****
****
Elaine Murakami****
FHWA Office of Planning****
206-220-4460 (in Seattle)****
****
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ctpp-news mailing list
ctpp-news(a)ryoko.chrispy.net
http://ryoko.chrispy.net/mailman/listinfo/ctpp-news****
****
** **
--
Krishnan Viswanathan
1101 High Meadow Dr
Tallahassee FL 32311****
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