Mobile-network records offer a partial view of how populations move and
communicate. Between 2010 and 2016, we studied what could and could not be
learned from these traces when they were aggregated and analyzed at population
scale.
An early study used call-detail records from more than one million people to
identify dense urban areas without imposing a fixed geographic grid. Later
work combined communication and transportation activity to detect unusual
events in Barcelona.
We then looked at several specific public problems. During the 2009
floods in Tabasco and Veracruz, changes in mobile activity were compared with
satellite imagery, rainfall, census data, and civil-protection records. In
London, aggregated mobile behavior and demographic information classified
areas according to whether they would have high or low crime in the following
month, reaching almost 70% accuracy, about six percentage points above the
demographic baseline. A later Bogotá case study considered the related
question of what data can reveal about urban vitality and safety.
We also considered public health, mental health, and credit scoring for
people with limited conventional financial histories. MobiScore matched
telecommunications records with financial outcomes to test whether behavioral
features could estimate credit risk where a conventional credit history was
unavailable. In the public- and mental-health papers, we set out research
opportunities and constraints rather than reporting clinical diagnostic
systems. Across these studies, prediction did not establish that phone
activity causes crime, illness, or financial behavior.
Mobile traces are not a census. Their resolution depends on when people use
the network and which cell tower serves them; operator coverage, access to
phones, privacy, consent, and the possibility of discriminatory proxies all
limit how the results should be interpreted or used.
Marcos R. Vieira, Vanessa Frias-Martinez, Nuria Oliver, Enrique Frias-Martinez (2010). Characterizing Dense Urban Areas from Mobile Phone-Call Data: Discovery and Social Dynamics. 2010 IEEE Second International Conference on Social Computing (SocialCom), 241-248. https://doi.org/10.1109/socialcom.2010.41
BibTeX
@inproceedings{vieira2010urban,
author = {Marcos R. Vieira and Vanessa Frias-Martinez and Nuria Oliver and Enrique Frias-Martinez},
title = {Characterizing Dense Urban Areas from Mobile Phone-Call Data: Discovery and Social Dynamics},
booktitle = {2010 IEEE Second International Conference on Social Computing (SocialCom)},
pages = {241--248},
year = 2010,
doi = {10.1109/socialcom.2010.41},
cites = 93,
citesdate = {2026-03-23}
}
Nuria Oliver (2011). Urban Computing and Smart Cities: Opportunities and Challenges in Modelling Large-Scale Aggregated Human Behavior. International Workshop on Human Behavior Understanding, 16-17. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-25446-8_2
BibTeX
@inproceedings{oliver2011urban,
author = {Nuria Oliver},
title = {Urban Computing and Smart Cities: Opportunities and Challenges in Modelling Large-Scale Aggregated Human Behavior},
booktitle = {International Workshop on Human Behavior Understanding},
publisher = {Springer},
pages = {16--17},
year = 2011,
doi = {10.1007/978-3-642-25446-8_2},
cites = 4,
citesdate = {2026-03-23}
}
Joachim Neumann, Manqi Zao, Alexandros Karatzoglou, Nuria Oliver (2013). Event Detection in Communication and Transportation Data. Iberian Conference on Pattern Recognition and Image Analysis (IbPRIA), 827-838. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38628-2_98
BibTeX
@inproceedings{neumann2013event,
author = {Joachim Neumann and Manqi Zao and Alexandros Karatzoglou and Nuria Oliver},
title = {Event Detection in Communication and Transportation Data},
booktitle = {Iberian Conference on Pattern Recognition and Image Analysis (IbPRIA)},
publisher = {Springer},
pages = {827--838},
year = 2013,
doi = {10.1007/978-3-642-38628-2_98},
cites = 6,
citesdate = {2026-03-23}
}
Jean-Martin Bauer Torres-Fernandez, Amit Wadhwa, Alex Rutherford, Vanessa Frias-Martinez, David Pastor-Escuredo, Alfredo Morales-Guzman, Liudmyla Romanoff, Jong Gun Lee, Nuria Oliver, others (2014). Flooding Through the Lens of Mobile Phone Activity. IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference, 279-286. https://doi.org/10.1109/ghtc.2014.6970293
BibTeX
@inproceedings{bauertorres2014flooding,
author = {Jean-Martin Bauer Torres-Fernandez and Amit Wadhwa and Alex Rutherford and Vanessa Frias-Martinez and David Pastor-Escuredo and Alfredo Morales-Guzman and Liudmyla Romanoff and Jong Gun Lee and Nuria Oliver and others},
title = {Flooding Through the Lens of Mobile Phone Activity},
booktitle = {IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference},
year = 2014,
doi = {10.1109/ghtc.2014.6970293},
pages = {279--286},
cites = 91,
citesdate = {2026-03-23}
}
Andrey Bogomolov, Bruno Lepri, Jacopo Staiano, Nuria Oliver, Fabio Pianesi, Alex Pentland (2014). Once Upon a Crime: Towards Crime Prediction from Demographics and Mobile Data. Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI 2014), 427-434. https://doi.org/10.1145/2663204.2663254
BibTeX
@inproceedings{bogomolov2014crime,
author = {Andrey Bogomolov and Bruno Lepri and Jacopo Staiano and Nuria Oliver and Fabio Pianesi and Alex Pentland},
title = {Once Upon a Crime: Towards Crime Prediction from Demographics and Mobile Data},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Multimodal Interaction (ICMI 2014)},
pages = {427--434},
year = 2014,
doi = {10.1145/2663204.2663254},
award = {ACM ICMI Ten Year Technical Impact Award},
awardyear = {2014/2024},
cites = 459,
citesdate = {2026-03-23}
}
★ ACM ICMI Ten Year Technical Impact Award (2014/2024)
Andrey Bogomolov, Bruno Lepri, Jacopo Staiano, Emmanuel Letouze, Nuria Oliver, Fabio Pianesi, Alex Pentland (2015). Moves on the Street: Classifying Crime Hotspots Using Aggregated Anonymized Data on People Dynamics. Big Data Journal 3(3), 148-158. https://doi.org/10.1089/big.2014.0054
BibTeX
@article{bogomolov2015moves,
author = {Andrey Bogomolov and Bruno Lepri and Jacopo Staiano and Emmanuel Letouze and Nuria Oliver and Fabio Pianesi and Alex Pentland},
title = {Moves on the Street: Classifying Crime Hotspots Using Aggregated Anonymized Data on People Dynamics},
journal = {Big Data Journal},
volume = 3,
number = 3,
year = 2015,
doi = {10.1089/big.2014.0054},
pages = {148--158},
cites = 82,
citesdate = {2026-03-23}
}
Rodrigo Lara Molina, Bruno Lepri, Emmanuel Letouze, Nuria Oliver, others (2016). What Makes a City Vital and Safe: Bogot\'a Case Study. World Bank. https://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/211351466184583762/What-makes-a-city-vital-and-safe.pdf
BibTeX
@article{laramolina2016bogota,
author = {Rodrigo Lara Molina and Bruno Lepri and Emmanuel Letouze and Nuria Oliver and others},
title = {What Makes a City Vital and Safe: Bogot{\'{a}} Case Study},
journal = {World Bank},
year = 2016,
url = {https://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/211351466184583762/What-makes-a-city-vital-and-safe.pdf}
}
Jose San Pedro, Davide Proserpio, Nuria Oliver (2015). MobiScore: Towards Universal Credit Scoring from Mobile Phone Data. International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation, and Personalization (UMAP 2015), 195-207. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20267-9_16
BibTeX
@inproceedings{sanpedro2015mobiscore,
author = {Jose San Pedro and Davide Proserpio and Nuria Oliver},
title = {{MobiScore}: Towards Universal Credit Scoring from Mobile Phone Data},
booktitle = {International Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation, and Personalization (UMAP 2015)},
publisher = {Springer},
pages = {195--207},
year = 2015,
doi = {10.1007/978-3-319-20267-9_16},
cites = 64,
citesdate = {2026-03-23}
}
Nuria Oliver, Aleksandar Matic, Enrique Frias-Martinez (2015). Mobile Network Data for Public Health: Opportunities and Challenges. Frontiers in Public Health 3, 189. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2015.00189
BibTeX
@article{oliver2015mobile,
author = {Nuria Oliver and Aleksandar Matic and Enrique Frias-Martinez},
title = {Mobile Network Data for Public Health: Opportunities and Challenges},
volume = 3,
pages = 189,
year = 2015,
doi = {10.3389/fpubh.2015.00189},
journal = {Frontiers in Public Health},
cites = 73,
citesdate = {2026-03-23}
}
Aleksandar Matic, Nuria Oliver (2016). The Untapped Opportunity of Mobile Network Data for Mental Health. 10th EAI International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare, 285-288. https://doi.org/10.4108/eai.16-5-2016.2263783
BibTeX
@inproceedings{matic2016mental,
author = {Aleksandar Matic and Nuria Oliver},
title = {The Untapped Opportunity of Mobile Network Data for Mental Health},
booktitle = {10th EAI International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare},
pages = {285--288},
year = 2016,
doi = {10.4108/eai.16-5-2016.2263783},
cites = 5,
citesdate = {2026-03-23}
}
10th EAI International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare · 2016
Related patent
Patent
Cite
Formatted citation
Enrique Frias Martinez, Vanessa Frias Martinez, Miriam Vieira, Nuria Oliver (2013). Method for an automatic identification of urban dense areas from cell phones records.
BibTeX
@patent{friasmartinez2013urban,
author = {Frias Martinez, Enrique and Frias Martinez, Vanessa and Vieira, Miriam and Oliver, Nuria},
title = {Method for an automatic identification of urban dense areas from cell phones records},
number = 8577380,
type = {patentus},
year = 2013,
note = {Priority 2011-05-02, Filed 2011-05-02, Granted 2013-11-05},
cites = 21
}
Method for an automatic identification of urban dense areas from cell phones records
Enrique Frias Martinez, Vanessa Frias Martinez, Miriam Vieira, Nuria Oliver