Semantic annotation of mobile phone data using machine learning algorithms

Cell phone call location data has been utilized for the study of travel patterns, but the underlying activities that originate the movement are still at a less explored stage. Resulted from routine and automated features of decision-making processes, human activity and travel behaviour exhibit a high level of spatial-temporal periodicities as well as a certain order of the activities. In this chapter, a method has been developed based on these regularities, which predicts activities being conducted at call locations. The method includes four steps: a set of comprehensive variables is defined; feature selection techniques are applied; a group of state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms and an ensemble of the above algorithms are employed; an additional enhancement algorithm is designed. Using data gathered from natural communication of 80 users over a period of 1 year, the proposed method is evaluated. Based on the ensemble of the models, prediction accuracy of 69.7% was achieved. Using the enhancement algorithm, the performance obtained 7.6% improvement. The experimental results demonstrate the potential to annotate call locations based on the integration between machine learning algorithms and the characteristics of underlying activity and travel behaviour, contributing towards the semantic interpretation and application of the massive data.