Estimating urban mobility with open data: A case study in Bologna

Real-world data are key to the implementation and validation of urban transport models, and their availability and accuracy can dramatically affect the reliability of the resulting estimates. This paper discusses the potential of open data as a mean to gain insights in urban mobility, so as to supplement traditional methodologies that are often complex and expensive. We propose a methodology-fully based on publicly accessible data-for the development of Origin-Destination Matrices (ODMs). The methodology uses as input (i) a baseline morning-peak-hour ODM and (ii) road traffic count data. We test our proposed approach in a real-world case study, i.e., the city of Bologna, Italy. We also employ open geospatial data, from socioeconomic sources, to validate the ODMs, and find that these reproduce the typical urban travel demand profile in the target city during a whole day. Our results demonstrate the suitability of the methodology for transport policy design and urban planning. We also discuss current difficulties of gathering open data and the lessons learned when attempting to leverage such data.