Mobile phone data: challenges for spatial research

Abstract

The paper investigates if and how mobile phone data can help to describe the complexity of urban phenomena, highlighting the challenges faced by researchers integrating mobile phone data into their activities. Two perspectives are offered: the first is a reflection on the features of these data collected anonymously by mobile phone users, as a condition for understanding its potentialities and limits for the analysis, visualization, and interpretation of people’s presence and movements in urban spaces (research on mobile phone data). The second perspective focuses on the uses of mobile phone data in spatial research, starting from the outcomes described in this special issue and highlighting the potentialities and limits of these data in facing several research questions in urban studies (research with mobile phone data).

Keywords

• mobile phone data
• digital data
• spatial analysis