title: Universal predictability of mobility patterns in cities.
abstract: Despite the long history of modelling human mobility, we continue to lack a highly accurate approach with low data requirements for predicting mobility patterns in cities. Here, we present a population-weighted opportunities model without any adjustable parameters to capture the underlying driving force accounting for human mobility patterns at the city scale. We use various mobility data collected from a number of cities with different characteristics to demonstrate the predictive power of our model. We find that insofar as the spatial distribution of population is available, our model offers universal prediction of mobility patterns in good agreement with real observations, including distance distribution, destination travel constraints and flux. By contrast, the models that succeed in modelling mobility patterns in countries are not applicable in cities, which suggests that there is a diversity of human mobility at different spatial scales. Our model has potential applications in many fields relevant to mobility behaviour in cities, without relying on previous mobility measurements.
authors.affiliation: School of Systems Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, People's Republic of China Department of Transportation Engineering, Shijiazhuang Tiedao University, Shijiazhuang 050043, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Xiao-Yong
authors.initials: XY
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.affiliation: School of Systems Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Chen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: School of Systems Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.affiliation: School of Systems Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Zengru
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Di
authors.affiliation: School of Systems Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, People's Republic of China School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA wenxuwang@bnu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Wen-Xu
authors.initials: WX
authors.lastname: Wang
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D011157:Population Dynamics; D014506:Urban Renewal
keywords: city scale; human mobility; population-weighted opportunities model; trip distribution model