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New web tool from MIT organizes human movement in interactive graphs

BIM and Information Technology

New web tool from MIT organizes human movement in interactive graphs

Users can explore the mobile phone activities in London, New York, Los Angeles, and Hong Kong.


By Adilla Menayang, Assistant Digital Editor | October 19, 2015
New web tool from MIT organizes human movement in interactive graphs

A screenshot of New York City in the web tool, where mobile-phone activity is organized as timelines.

When it comes to the locals and visitors of the world’s major cities, a cellular phone is a staple. With that many people using their phones, a lot of interesting patterns can be observed from analyzing their data and phone usage information.

This is what developers at MIT’s SENSEable City Laboratory created together with Ericsson: ManyCities, a new website that “explores the spatio-temporal patterns of mobile phone activity,” ArchDaily reports. The web tool takes complex data and organizes it so that users can easily visualize the patterns of human movement within the city.

A chat board on the right-hand side allows users to post their observations, creating a forum where urban planners, demographers, and anyone else interested can cross-pollinate and find creative ways of using the data.

So far, the cities available on the web tool are London, New York, Hong Kong, and Los Angeles.

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