An anonymised longitudinal GPS location dataset to understand changes in activity-travel behaviour between pre- and post-COVID periods

Google location history (GLH); Activity point location (APL); GPS; Timeline tracking; Longitudinal data; COVID; Ecuador; Dataset; Socio-demographics; Mobility

Abstract :

[en] Collecting GPS data using mobile devices is essential to understanding human mobility. However, getting this type of data is tricky because of some specific features of mobile operating systems, the high-power consumption of mobile devices, and users’ privacy concerns. Therefore, data of this kind are rarely publicly available for scientific purposes, while private companies that own the data are often reluctant to share it. Here we present a large anonymous longitudinal dataset of Activity Point Location (APL) generated from mobile devices’ GPS tracking. The GPS data were collected by using the Google Location History (GLH), accessible in the Google Maps application. Our dataset, named AnLoCOV hereafter, includes anonymised data from 338 persons with corresponding socio-demographics over approximately ten years (2012–2022), thus covering pre- and post-COVID periods, and calculates over 2 million weekly-classified APL extracted from approximately 16 million GPS tracking points in Ecuador. Furthermore, we made our models publicly available to enable advanced analysis of human mobility and activity spaces based on the collected datasets.

Research Center/Unit :

UEE - Urban and Environmental Engineering - ULiège
Montefiore Institute - Montefiore Institute of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - ULiège

Disciplines :

Engineering, computing & technology: Multidisciplinary, general & others

Author, co-author :

Moncayo Unda, Milton Giovanny ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Urban and Environmental Engineering

Van Droogenbroeck, Marc ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département d'électricité, électronique et informatique (Institut Montefiore) > Télécommunications

Saadi, Ismaïl ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département ArGEnCo > Transports et mobilité

Cools, Mario ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département ArGEnCo > Transports et mobilité

Language :

English

Title :

An anonymised longitudinal GPS location dataset to understand changes in activity-travel behaviour between pre- and post-COVID periods

Publication date :

29 November 2022

Journal title :

Data in Brief

eISSN :

2352-3409

Publisher :

Elsevier BV

Volume :

Pages :

1-12

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Additional URL :

https://api.elsevier.com/content/article/PII:S2352340922009799?httpAccept=text/xml

Data Set :

https://doi.org/10.17632/vk77k9gvg3.2

The data is based on Google Timeline. Each person used the Google Maps application on their mobile device to get the Google Location History (GLH) data. Each person requested the file from Google and shared it with us. After receiving the file, a recruitment questionnaire to collect some additional socio-demographic information was performed. All data was stored under strict ethical and privacy terms. The questionnaire is available as supplementary material.

Available on ORBi :

since 29 November 2022

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Bibliography

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