Urban Gravity: a Model for Intercity Telecommunication Flows

TL;DR

This paper models intercity telecommunication flows in Belgium using a gravity model, revealing that communication intensity depends on city sizes and inversely on the square of the distance between them.

Contribution

It introduces a gravity model for intercity communication flows based on mobile phone data, highlighting the relationship between city sizes, distances, and communication intensity.

Findings

Communication intensity follows a gravity model proportional to city sizes and inversely proportional to distance squared.

Analysis of 2.5 million mobile users across 571 cities in Belgium.

Validation of the gravity model for intercity telecommunication patterns.

Abstract

We analyze the anonymous communication patterns of 2.5 million customers of a Belgian mobile phone operator. Grouping customers by billing address, we build a social network of cities, that consists of communications between 571 cities in Belgium. We show that inter-city communication intensity is characterized by a gravity model: the communication intensity between two cities is proportional to the product of their sizes divided by the square of their distance.