Topological indexes and community structure for urban mobility networks: Variations in a business day

Abstract

Topological analysis and community detection in mobility complex networks have an essential role in many contexts, from economics to the environmental agenda. However, in many cases, the dynamic component of mobility data is not considered directly. In this paper, we study how topological indexes and community structure changes in a business day. For the analyzes, we use a mobility database with a high temporal resolution. Our case study is the city of São José dos Campos (Brazil)—the city is divided into 55 traffic zones. More than 20 thousand people were asked about their travels the day before the survey (Origin-Destination Survey). We generated a set of graphs, where each vertex represents a traffic zone, and the edges are weighted by the number of trips between them, restricted to a time window. We calculated topological properties, such as degree, clustering coefficient and diameter, and the network’s community structure. The results show spatially concise community structures related to geographical factors such as highways and the persistence of some communities for different timestamps. These analyses may support the definition and adjustment of public policies to improve urban mobility. For instance, the community structure of the network might be useful for defining inter-zone public transportation.