Events that Affect Urban Mobility Patterns: an Analysis of Beijing GPS Data

The analysis of data collected through GPS and / or smartphone logs allows the identification of human mobility patterns. This identification has been the subject of several surveys in recent years. However, certain factors can change these patterns, such as special events of great magnitude (e.g., the Olympic Games) or environmental events (e.g., an increase in air pollutants.) In this paper, we present an investigation into the impact of these events on these patterns. We analyze urban mobility data collected in Beijing between April 2009 and October 2012, we use Artificial Intelligence techniques to identify mobility patterns in these data and then check for changes in patterns during the aforementioned events. The analysis of these data has become an important tool to extract insights and to support the planning of the urban displacement in the day to day and in special events.