https://doi.org/10.1140/epjds/s13688-022-00335-9
Regular Article
Modeling international mobility using roaming cell phone traces during COVID-19 pandemic
1
Bruno Kessler Foundation, Trento, Italy
2
Free University of Bolzano, Bolzano, Italy
3
CAILAB, Universidad Camilo Jose Cela, Madrid, Spain
4
Telefonica Research, Madrid, Spain
Received:
22
December
2021
Accepted:
21
March
2022
Published online:
4
April
2022
Most of the studies related to human mobility are focused on intra-country mobility. However, there are many scenarios (e.g., spreading diseases, migration) in which timely data on international commuters are vital. Mobile phones represent a unique opportunity to monitor international mobility flows in a timely manner and with proper spatial aggregation. This work proposes using roaming data generated by mobile phones to model incoming and outgoing international mobility. We use the gravity and radiation models to capture mobility flows before and during the introduction of non-pharmaceutical interventions. However, traditional models have some limitations: for instance, mobility restrictions are not explicitly captured and may play a crucial role. To overtake such limitations, we propose the COVID Gravity Model (CGM), namely an extension of the traditional gravity model that is tailored for the pandemic scenario. This proposed approach overtakes, in terms of accuracy, the traditional models by 126.9% for incoming mobility and by 63.9% when modeling outgoing mobility flows.
Key words: Human mobility / International mobility / Roaming data / COVID gravity model
© The Author(s) 2022
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