Spatial Mobility: analysis of the demographic census data and the BlaBlaCar application

Authors

  • Gustavo Henrique Naves Givisiez
  • Elzira Lucia de Oliveira

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.46932/sfjdv3n3-036

Keywords:

commuting mobility, big databases, blablacar application

Abstract

Empirical data is the starting point for the analysis of human mobility, since it allows the calibration and validation of models and, therefore, a set of data sources are useful for this analysis: censuses; Origin and Destination surveys; measurement of money flows and phone calls; GPS tracking of cell phones or other sources; means of payment of public transportation systems; among others. The registration of trips by apps is a way to capture human movements in space and, if on the one hand the companies usually do not provide social and demographic information of their users and the data are limited to the universe of customers registered on the platforms, on the other hand, the digital footprints of millions of individuals are recorded by several devices all the time in an uninterrupted way. The objective of this paper is to analyze human mobility in two selected regions in the state of Rio de Janeiro: the Metropolitan Region of Rio de Janeiro and an area composed of 26 municipalities near the North and Northwest regions of the state of Rio de Janeiro, using data from the BlaBlaCar application and the 2000 and 2010 Demographic Censuses. An initial hypothesis is to look for patterns indicating the use of the application for home-work mobility, hypothesis that was initially refuted for the Metropolitan Region, in view of the dense network of public transport apparently minimizes the relevance of rides. However, this same hypothesis, although not confirmed, was not refuted for the Campos Basin region, which showed a high proportion of trips made internally at times and days of the week consistent with a typical home-work movement.

Published

2022-05-27

How to Cite

Givisiez, G. H. N. ., & de Oliveira, E. L. . (2022). Spatial Mobility: analysis of the demographic census data and the BlaBlaCar application. South Florida Journal of Development, 3(3), 3489–3499. https://doi.org/10.46932/sfjdv3n3-036