Mapping mobility to support crisis management

In this paper we describe a method and an infrastructure for rapid mapping of mobility patterns, based on a combination of a mobile mobility tracker, a large-scale data collection infrastructure, and a data and visual analytics tool. The combination of the three enables mapping everyday mobility patterns for decision makers, e.g. city council, motorways authorities, etc. and can support emergency responders in improving their preparedness and the recovery in the aftermath of a crisis. The technology is currently employed over very large scale: (i) in England it is used by a public body to incentivise physical mobility (400,000 app downloads and hundreds of millions of data point since September 2017); (ii) in Sheffield UK, through the MoveMore initiative, tracking active mobility of users (5,000 downloads); and (iii) the European project SETA, to track multimodal mobility patterns in three cities (Birmingham, Santander and Turin).