Institute For The Future

Cell phone map of Graz

"MIT researchers tracked tens of thousands of (anonymous) cell-phone users traveling through Graz, Austria and used the data to generate a real-time map of the city.

From a press release:

The researchers used three types of data-density of cellphone calls, origins and destinations of the calls, and position of users tracked at regular intervals-to create computer-generated images that can be overlayed with one another and with geographic and street maps of a city to show the peaks and valleys of the landscape as well as peaks in cellphone use.

"For the first time ever we are able to visualize the full dynamics of a city in real time," said project leader Carlo Ratti, an architect/engineer and head of the SENSEable City Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "This opens up new possibilities for urban studies and planning. The real-time city is now real: a system that is able to continuously sense its condition and can quickly react to its criticalities," he added.

 

Link to press release, Link to Mobile Landscape project page