Human movement is both diffusive and directed.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the influence of the built environment on human movement requires quantifying spatial structure in a general sense. Because of the difficulty of this task, studies of movement dynamics often ignore spatial heterogeneity and treat movement through journey lengths or distances alone. This study analyses public bicycle data from central London to reveal that, although journey distances, directions, and frequencies of occurrence are spatially variable, their relative spatial patterns remain largely constant, suggesting the influence of a fixed spatial template. A method is presented to describe this underlying space in terms of the relative orientation of movements toward, away from, and around locations of geographical or cultural significance. This produces two fields: one of c

SUBMITTER: Padgham M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3364271 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature