The impact of scale on extracting urban mobility patterns using texture analysis

Abstract The development of high-precision location tracking devices and advancements in data collection, storage, transmission technologies, and data mining algorithms have led to the availability of large datasets with high spatiotemporal resolution. These geospatial big data can be used to identify human movement patterns in urban areas. However, identifying human movement patterns may yield different results depending on the scale size used. In this paper, we employed first and second order texture analysis algorithms to identify spatial patterns of human movement for various scale sizes based on taxi trajectory data from Nanjing, China. The results demonstrated that texture analysis can quantify changes in human movement patterns for different scale sizes in an urban area. Furthermore, the results may differ based on the location of the study area. This study contributed both methodologically and empirically. Methodologically, we used texture analysis to examine the impact of different scale sizes on the extraction of aggregated human travel patterns. Empirically, we quantified the effects of different scale sizes on extracting aggregated travel patterns of an urban area. Overall, the findings of this study can have significant implications for urban planning and policy-making, as understanding human movement patterns at different scales can provide valuable insights for optimizing transportation systems and enhancing overall urban mobility.