Assessing the relevance of mobile phone data to estimate origindestination matrices

Abstract

Determining the transport demand is essential to develop models for trip planning. Until now, the most common
way to estimate OD matrices is surveys in the field. In spite of the quality of results, this method is long, expensive,
and sometime impossible to apply. Mobiles phone technologies provide new tools to investigate the travel
behaviours of people. However, validity and reliability of these data for flow estimation should be assessed. In the
paper, we propose a comparative analysis between OD matrices obtained from a commonly used traditional survey
and mobile phone data analysis. Both trip surveys have been independently conducted at the same time and at the
same point of the road network. Representativeness and variability of key indicators are studied. Similarities of
trip distributions have been searched among OD relationships. Advantages and limitations about using GSM
mobile tracking for trip surveys are then discussed. This novel method is concluded to be a promising alternative
or addition to traditional survey protocols, but further developments are still needed.