Investigating the Use of Anonymous Cellular Phone Data to Determine Intercity Travel Volumes and Modes

Anonymous cellular phone data has been investigated extensively for use in urban transportation applications, but relatively little for intercity applications. A methodology is developed to extract intercity trips from anonymous cellular phone data. Samples from two separate days of anonymous cellular phone data from Alberta, Canada is used to find intercity trips picked up by signal between the cities of Edmonton and Calgary. The estimated travel time of each trip is used to determine if it was conducted by air or ground. Results show a modal split of 9% air and 81% ground for the first day, and 18% air and 82% ground for the second day, which are within the range of recent estimates. An analysis was conducted to associate air trips with historical flight data, and found that 75-80% of air trips were successfully associated. Overall, the modal split and air trip analysis shows promising results in the methodology used and the next step is to identify whether this can be applied to full datasets of longer durations. This work contributes to current research as it identifies intercity modal split between ground and air, which to the authors' knowledge has not been done before.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ABJ10 Standing Committee on National Transportation Data Requirements and Programs.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Hui, Kathy Tin Ying
  • Wang, Chenhao
  • Kim, Amy
  • Qiu, Tony Z
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 96th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2017-1-8 to 2017-1-12
• Date: 2017

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 14p
• Monograph Title: TRB 96th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Air transportation; Cellular telephones; Data collection; Ground transportation; Intercity travel; Modal split; Travel demand; Urban transportation
• Geographic Terms: Alberta (Canada); Calgary (Canada); Edmonton (Canada)
• Subject Areas: Aviation; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01629929
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 17-03652
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Mar 27 2017 9:26AM