Citation

Botta F, Moat HS, Preis T. R. Soc. Open Sci. 2015; 2(5): 150162.

Affiliation

Data Science Lab, Behavioural Science , Warwick Business School, University of Warwick , Coventry CV4 7AL, UK.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Royal Society Publishing)

DOI

10.1098/rsos.150162

PMID

26064667

PMCID

PMC4453255

Abstract

Being able to infer the number of people in a specific area is of extreme importance for the avoidance of crowd disasters and to facilitate emergency evacuations. Here, using a football (soccer) stadium and an airport as case studies, we present evidence of a strong relationship between the number of people in restricted areas and activity recorded by mobile phone providers and the online service Twitter. Our findings suggest that data generated through our interactions with mobile phone networks and the Internet may allow us to gain valuable measurements of the current state of society.

Language: en