Weather effects on the patterns of people's everyday activities: A study using GPS traces of mobile phone users

Horanont, T; Phithakkitnukoon, S; Leong, TW; Sekimoto, Y; Shibasaki, R

Weather effects on the patterns of people's everyday activities: A study using GPS traces of mobile phone users

Horanont, T Phithakkitnukoon, S Leong, TW

Sekimoto, Y Shibasaki, R

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Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: PLoS ONE, 2013, 8 (12)
Issue Date:: 2013-12-18

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Horanont, T	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Phithakkitnukoon, S	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Leong, TW https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1021-9001	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Sekimoto, Y	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Shibasaki, R	en_US
dc.date.available	2013-10-09	en_US
dc.date.issued	2013-12-18	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	PLoS ONE, 2013, 8 (12)	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/26575
dc.description.abstract	This study explores the effects that the weather has on people's everyday activity patterns. Temperature, rainfall, and wind speed were used as weather parameters. People's daily activity patterns were inferred, such as place visited, the time this took place, the duration of the visit, based on the GPS location traces of their mobile phones overlaid upon Yellow Pages information. Our analysis of 31,855 mobile phone users allowed us to infer that people were more likely to stay longer at eateries or food outlets, and (to a lesser degree) at retail or shopping areas when the weather is very cold or when conditions are calm (non-windy). When compared to people's regular activity patterns, certain weather conditions affected people's movements and activities noticeably at different times of the day. On cold days, people's activities were found to be more diverse especially after 10AM, showing greatest variations between 2PM and 6PM. A similar trend is observed between 10AM and midnight on rainy days, with people's activities found to be most diverse on days with heaviest rainfalls or on days when the wind speed was stronger than 4 km/h, especially between 10AM-1AM. Finally, we observed that different geographical areas of a large metropolis were impacted differently by the weather. Using data of urban infrastructure to characterize areas, we found strong correlations between weather conditions upon people's accessibility to trains. This study sheds new light on the influence of weather conditions on human behavior, in particular the choice of daily activities and how mobile phone data can be used to investigate the influence of environmental factors on urban dynamics. © 2013 Horanont et al.	en_US
dc.relation.ispartof	PLoS ONE	en_US
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.1371/journal.pone.0081153	en_US
dc.subject.classification	General Science & Technology	en_US
dc.subject.mesh	Humans	en_US
dc.subject.mesh	Activities of Daily Living	en_US
dc.subject.mesh	Temperature	en_US
dc.subject.mesh	Wind	en_US
dc.subject.mesh	Weather	en_US
dc.subject.mesh	Cellular Phone	en_US
dc.subject.mesh	Geographic Information Systems	en_US
dc.subject.mesh	Cell Phone	en_US
dc.title	Weather effects on the patterns of people's everyday activities: A study using GPS traces of mobile phone users	en_US
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.citation.volume	12	en_US
utslib.citation.volume	8	en_US
utslib.for	0805 Distributed Computing	en_US
pubs.embargo.period	Not known	en_US
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology/School of Computer Science
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Strength - HCTD - Human Centred Technology Design
utslib.copyright.status	open_access
pubs.issue	12	en_US
pubs.publication-status	Published	en_US
pubs.volume	8	en_US

Abstract:

This study explores the effects that the weather has on people's everyday activity patterns. Temperature, rainfall, and wind speed were used as weather parameters. People's daily activity patterns were inferred, such as place visited, the time this took place, the duration of the visit, based on the GPS location traces of their mobile phones overlaid upon Yellow Pages information. Our analysis of 31,855 mobile phone users allowed us to infer that people were more likely to stay longer at eateries or food outlets, and (to a lesser degree) at retail or shopping areas when the weather is very cold or when conditions are calm (non-windy). When compared to people's regular activity patterns, certain weather conditions affected people's movements and activities noticeably at different times of the day. On cold days, people's activities were found to be more diverse especially after 10AM, showing greatest variations between 2PM and 6PM. A similar trend is observed between 10AM and midnight on rainy days, with people's activities found to be most diverse on days with heaviest rainfalls or on days when the wind speed was stronger than 4 km/h, especially between 10AM-1AM. Finally, we observed that different geographical areas of a large metropolis were impacted differently by the weather. Using data of urban infrastructure to characterize areas, we found strong correlations between weather conditions upon people's accessibility to trains. This study sheds new light on the influence of weather conditions on human behavior, in particular the choice of daily activities and how mobile phone data can be used to investigate the influence of environmental factors on urban dynamics. © 2013 Horanont et al.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/26575