Prof Tao Cheng at Manchester Metropolitan University

Project leader Professor Tao Cheng was invited to give a seminar at Manchester Metropolitan University on the topic of space-time analytics of mobility data. Her talk, entitled “Space-Time Analytics of Mobility Data for An Improved Understanding People and Cities”, investigated how mobility datasets have been leveraged to gain insights into travel patterns in the transportation systems of megacities.

Specifically, Prof Cheng suggests that the potential of these data to reveal insights into individual behaviours has not yet been fully realised. She presented examples of using space-time analytics to mine “big” mobility data (including GPS, Oyster card data, and social media data) to extract the travel patterns and build space-time profiles of individuals, to enable an improved understanding of people and their interaction with cities. During the question and answer session, Prof Cheng further discussed the three case studies of “big” mobility data, including recent work using Oyster card and Twitter data, and gave her views on how such data could contribute to providing dynamic census information.

Professor Cheng was hosted by Dr James Cheng from the Urban Environment Research Group of Manchester Metropolitan University. Thanks for a kind welcome and attentive audience!