https://doi.org/10.1140/epjds/s13688-023-00438-x
Regular Article
Multiple gravity laws for human mobility within cities
1
Department of Physics, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Pohang, Republic of Korea
2
Graduate School of Data Science, Chonnam National University, Gwangju, Republic of Korea
3
Center for Humans and Machines, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
4
Department of Industrial and Management Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Pohang, Republic of Korea
5
Department of Physics, The Catholic University of Korea, Bucheon, Republic of Korea
Received:
24
May
2023
Accepted:
4
December
2023
Published online:
11
December
2023
The gravity model of human mobility has successfully described the deterrence of travels with distance in urban mobility patterns. While a broad spectrum of deterrence was found across different cities, yet it is not empirically clear if movement patterns in a single city could also have a spectrum of distance exponents denoting a varying deterrence depending on the origin and destination regions in the city. By analyzing the travel data in the twelve most populated cities of the United States of America, we empirically find that the distance exponent governing the deterrence of travels significantly varies within a city depending on the traffic volumes of the origin and destination regions. Despite the diverse traffic landscape of the cities analyzed, a common pattern is observed for the distance exponents; the exponent value tends to be higher between regions with larger traffic volumes, while it tends to be lower between regions with smaller traffic volumes. This indicates that our method indeed reveals the hidden diversity of gravity laws that would be overlooked otherwise.
Key words: Human mobility / Gravity model / Multiple gravity / Urban mobility / Distance exponent
© The Author(s) 2023
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