2024/03/29 by Zhihua Zhong, Zhong, Zhihua, Hideki Tayakasu +3
Engineering · Social Sciences · #Analogy #Computer science #Data science #Electric network #Electrical engineering #Engineering #Epistemology #Global Positioning System #Human Mobility and Location-Based Analysis #Telecommunications #Traffic Prediction and Management Techniques #Voltage
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2403.19988
published in arXiv (Cornell University) (Cornell University)
openalex publication_date 2024/03/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Human mobility in an urban area is complicated; the origins, destinations, and transport methods of each person differ. The quantitative description of urban human mobility has recently attracted the attention of researchers, and it highly related to urban science problems. Herein, combined with physics inspiration, we introduce a revised electric circuit model (RECM) in which moving people are regarded as charged particles and analogical concepts of electromagnetism such as human conductivity and human potential enable us to capture the characteristics of urban human mobility. We introduce the unit system, ensure the uniqueness of the calculation result, and reduce the computation cost of the algorithm to 1/10000 compared with the original ECM, making the model more universal and easier to use. We compared features including human conductivity and potential between different cities in Japan to show our improvement of the universality and the application range of the model. Furthermore, based on inspiration of physics, we propose a route generation model (RGM) to simulate a human flow pattern that automatically determines suitable routes between a given origin and destination as a source and sink, respectively. These discoveries are expected to lead to new approaches to the solution of urban science problems.