Cell Phone Data as a Population Proxy

The maps below, which I produced in Tableau, show aggregated cellular signals in Wellington (New Zealand) at different times of the day. The data gives a good approximation of human activity, and provides an insight into relative changes by time and suburb.

Traditionally is has been easy to source population data for place of residence, from various databases - either aggregated (such as census), or atomic (such as vehicle, address, property etc databases). It has been harder to source workplace population data, though it is available in some aggregated forms. And it has been impossible to source transient population data on a large scale. 

That is all changing with the explosion in mobile device usage. Now, instead of relying on static data for area profiling and analysis, smart organisations can introduce dynamic mobile-derived data to get more accurate insight into variability by time and day. 

Deeper analysis, into attributes like velocity between time-stamped data points, can separate people who are walking, driving, or not moving. Similarly, geofencing can be used to identify the 'gateways' (eg airport or train station) people use en route to various locations. 

The commercialisation of this data is still at an early stage, and strict privacy must be applied to the phone users' data. However, with telcos increasingly willing to leverage the value of their data assets, expect to be able to supercharge your operational and marketing activity in the near future.