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MOBILE PHONES: THE NEW (CELLULAR) GEOGRAPHY

This dissertation evaluates and proposes the application of mobile phone location as a new and very appropriate data collection methodology to analyse urban mobility in contemporary cities. The standpoint of this work is that traditional urban techniques currently available to measure and represent the new conceptions of contemporary cities are highly inadequate to embrace the new spatiality of the ‘network society’, or the ‘space of flows’. The research starts with a theoretical review of such conceptions of contemporary cities and primary role of mobility as the major structuring element of a discontinuous space, rather than the traditional concept of a bounded and continuous space. Then an evaluation of the conventional tools available to urban geographers, geodemographers, and transportation researchers to measure mobility is presented. Highlighting the enormous gap between their conception of space and the one previously exposed. After making a case for the need of new technologies to tackle the complex spatio-temporal relationships that mobility allows in contemporary societies, mobile phone location is presented as one of those potential methodologies. A thorough analysis of mobile phone location technology is offered from different angles; its societal context, location services, new location uses and trends, methods of location, models for mobile objects, and the issues it raises on personal privacy. The research methodology then draws upon some of the major elements that will determine the success of this technology as a spatio-temporal coordinate system. The main aspect being location and temporal accuracy, spatial and temporal resolution and coverage, the automation of the monitoring process, and the visualisation of the resulting flows. Several mobile phone location tests were carried out to empirically evaluate some of these major elements at different scales, with varying results that are analysed and discussed in the light of the research questions. The most appropriate scale of analysis of this methodology is set to be that reflecting inter-urban mobility, as opposed to intraurban flows. Finally, the main findings are summarized and some proposals for further research suggested with the aim to spark contributions in this direction and to try to avoid other researchers some of the problems and limitations that constrained the research presented here. Mobile Phones: The New (Cellular) Geography 2