Applying temporal databases to geographical data analysis

Abstract

This paper reports an experience in which a temporal database was used to analyze the results of a survey on human behaviors and displacements in a ski resort. This survey was part of a broader study about the use of the resort's infrastructure, based on the time-geography methodology. As such, the presented experience may be seen as an attempt to implement some concepts of the time-geography using temporal database technology. Throughout the paper some shortcomings of current temporal data models regarding human displacements analysis are pointed out, and possible solutions are briefly sketched.