Massimo Colonna

Real-Time Urban Monitoring Using Cell Phones: A Case Study in Rome

This paper describes a new real-time urban monitoring system. The system uses the Localizing and Handling Network Event Systems (LocHNESs) platform developed by Telecom Italia for the real-time evaluation of urban dynamics based on the anonymous monitoring of mobile cellular networks. In addition, data are supplemented based on the instantaneous positioning of buses and taxis to provide information about urban mobility in real time, ranging from traffic conditions to the movements of pedestrians throughout the city. This system was exhibited at the Tenth International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale. It marks the unprecedented monitoring of a large urban area, which covered most of the city of Rome, in real time using a variety of sensing systems and will hopefully open the way to a new paradigm of understanding and optimizing urban dynamics.

Discovering events in the city via mobile network analysis

Can we automatically identify relevant places and events happening in the city from the analysis of mobile network use? In this paper we present a methodology to discover events from human mobility patterns as recorded by mobile network usage. Experiments conducted over an extensive dataset from the main Italian telecom operator show that the proposed approach is effective and can be applied to a number of different scenarios. These results can have a strong impact on a wide range of pervasive applications ranging from location-based services to urban planning.

People get together on special events: Discovering happenings in the city via cell network analysis

Several pervasive and mobile computing systems would benefit from being notified about special events happening in the city. In this paper we present a methodology to discover events from human mobility patterns as recorded by cell network usage. Experiments conducted over an extensive dataset from the main Italian telecom operator show that the proposed approach is effective and can be applied to a number of different scenarios. These results can have a strong impact on pervasive applications including online map services, automatic gazetteers, urban planning, and disaster response.

Estimating attendance from cellular network data

ABSTRACT An automatic estimate of the number of attendees to events happening in the city can provide valuable information to geographic information systems and geo-located applications. We present a methodology to estimate the number of events’ attendees from cellular network data. In this work, we used anonymized Call Detail Records (CDRs) comprising data on where and when users access the cellular network. Our approach is based on two key ideas: (1) we identify the network cells associated with the event location. (2) We verify the attendance of each user, as a measure of whether (s)he generates CDRs during the event, but not during other times. We evaluate our approach to estimate the number of attendees to a number of events ranging from football matches in stadiums to concerts and festivals in open squares. Comparing our results with the best groundtruth data available, our estimates provide a median error of less than 15% of the actual number of attendees.

Analysis of tourist classification from cellular network data

Abstract We present and evaluate a classification method to estimate tourist presence in an area from cellular network data. Our approach is based on setting up a classifier to label users according to five main classes: residents, commuters, people in-transit, tourists and excursionists. We experiment the approach in some important tourist cities in Italy: Venice, Florence, Turin and Lecce. In the lack of sound groundtruth data, we analysed the composition of different classes obtaining results in line with domain knowledge. Moreover, these results are also supported by an analysis of the locations frequented by the tourists that well conforms with expectations. Finally, the number of users classified as tourists is strongly correlated with official statistics on tourist presence in the area.

Performance evaluation of the software download procedure in an IEEE 802.11 WLAN

In the last years many different technologies and air interfaces have been standardized. B3G systems will allow the integration and coexistence of these diverse technologies in a common environment. It is a priority objective of this scenario of have a flexible terminal that can dynamically select the most appropriate RAT and reconfigure itself from the physical to the application layer. This reconfiguration can be carried out by downloading the various software modules that form the new RAT through the air interface on which it is currently operating. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the performance of the software download procedure when the terminal is operating in an IEEE 802.11 WLAN.