A Generalized Radiation Model for Human Mobility: Spatial Scale, Searching Direction and Trip Constraint

PLoS One. 2015 Nov 24;10(11):e0143500. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0143500. eCollection 2015.

Abstract

We generalized the recently introduced "radiation model", as an analog to the generalization of the classic "gravity model", to consolidate its nature of universality for modeling diverse mobility systems. By imposing the appropriate scaling exponent λ, normalization factor κ and system constraints including searching direction and trip OD constraint, the generalized radiation model accurately captures real human movements in various scenarios and spatial scales, including two different countries and four different cities. Our analytical results also indicated that the generalized radiation model outperformed alternative mobility models in various empirical analyses.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms
  • Models, Theoretical*
  • Reproducibility of Results

Grants and funding

YL is founded by the National Natural Science of China (No. 41271368 and No. 41428102). KQ is founded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41471326) and the Fundamental Research Funds of the Central Universities (No. 2042015kf0183). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.