Demo presented in the PAAMS 2016 conference

1. Introduction UTool Conclusions
U-Tool: A Urban-Toolkit for enhancing city maps
through citizens’ activity
E. del Val J. Palanca M. Rebollo
Universitat Politècnica de València
PAAMS 2016
@mrebollo UPV
U-Tool: A Urban-Toolkit for enhancing city maps through citizens’ activity

4. Introduction UTool Conclusions
Introduction
Study of dynamic in cities
Availability of real-time information for decision-making processes
regarding with the uses of the city
citizens as soft-sensors
geolocated resources
activity in social networks publicly available
@mrebollo UPV
U-Tool: A Urban-Toolkit for enhancing city maps through citizens’ activity

5. Introduction UTool Conclusions
Limitations of current apps
Twitter analytics: private information for the users
SocialBro et al.: apps to measure the impact of hashtags or
user influence
Geofeedia / WeLink: geolocated activity in an area, but
off-line
Flocker: real-time analysis, without geolocation
@mrebollo UPV
U-Tool: A Urban-Toolkit for enhancing city maps through citizens’ activity

6. Introduction UTool Conclusions
Our purpose
extraction of geolocated activity in Twitter
analysis as an spatial network
real-time
intuitive, without experience in complex network analysis
valid at professional level (urban planing) and personal
(citizens, tourists)
@mrebollo UPV
U-Tool: A Urban-Toolkit for enhancing city maps through citizens’ activity

7. Introduction UTool Conclusions
What can it do?
event detection
mobility patters
visitor attendance
predict activity
find best position for urban facilities
measure accesibility
@mrebollo UPV
U-Tool: A Urban-Toolkit for enhancing city maps through citizens’ activity

8. Introduction UTool Conclusions
Final purpose
Have the data about Twitter activity available through the open
data portal of the Valencia’s City Council.
@mrebollo UPV
U-Tool: A Urban-Toolkit for enhancing city maps through citizens’ activity

9. Introduction UTool Conclusions
Data
The Open Data portal offers information classified into several
areas
@mrebollo UPV
U-Tool: A Urban-Toolkit for enhancing city maps through citizens’ activity

10. Introduction UTool Conclusions
Data
The available information can be downloaded in a variety of data
formats, such as csv, shape, geojson, or kml among others
@mrebollo UPV
U-Tool: A Urban-Toolkit for enhancing city maps through citizens’ activity

11. Introduction UTool Conclusions
Metrics
1 density of activity/users associated to each PoI of the city;
2 metrics associated to the network structure generated using
Delaunay’s triangulation
3 "hot"/"cold" spots in the city that have an unusual activity
compared to the expected values in a usual day
4 estimation of the attraction of each PoI in the city
5 mobility patterns.
@mrebollo UPV
U-Tool: A Urban-Toolkit for enhancing city maps through citizens’ activity

12. Introduction UTool Conclusions
Points of interest (PoIs) and density
The activity in social networks can be assigned to a PoI if if falls
under the Voronoi’s region associated to the corresponding PoI
@mrebollo UPV
U-Tool: A Urban-Toolkit for enhancing city maps through citizens’ activity

13. Introduction UTool Conclusions
Structural metrics. Delaunay triangualtion
A Voronoi’s diagram can be represented as a network where the
links represented the adjacent polygons. Over this structure, we
can measure movements over the city
@mrebollo UPV
U-Tool: A Urban-Toolkit for enhancing city maps through citizens’ activity

14. Introduction UTool Conclusions
Structural metrics. Delaunay triangualtion
This two representations are equivalent and can be easily traslated
over the map of the city
@mrebollo UPV
U-Tool: A Urban-Toolkit for enhancing city maps through citizens’ activity

15. Introduction UTool Conclusions
Attraction of PoIs
Gravitational potential: the
activity of one user ’deforms’
the surroundings, attracting
the people in its influence area
pi = e−1
2
x−lngi
σ
2
× e−1
2
y−lati
σ
2
@mrebollo UPV
U-Tool: A Urban-Toolkit for enhancing city maps through citizens’ activity

16. Introduction UTool Conclusions
Attraction of PoIs
If two users send a tweet, the
effect is accumulated over the
"surface" of the city
@mrebollo UPV
U-Tool: A Urban-Toolkit for enhancing city maps through citizens’ activity

17. Introduction UTool Conclusions
Attraction of PoIs
Finally, when the effect of all
the tweets is accumulated,
relevant hot spots of the city
can be detected.
@mrebollo UPV
U-Tool: A Urban-Toolkit for enhancing city maps through citizens’ activity

18. Introduction UTool Conclusions
Mobility patterns
In a gravitational model, the influence of a mass deforms the
surrounding space and it affects to the trajectories of the close
bodies
@mrebollo UPV
U-Tool: A Urban-Toolkit for enhancing city maps through citizens’ activity

19. Introduction UTool Conclusions
Mobility patterns
If this is extrapolated to the city, we have checked that the
gravitational model from Twitter activity matches with the
movements of the people in the city
@mrebollo UPV
U-Tool: A Urban-Toolkit for enhancing city maps through citizens’ activity

20. Introduction UTool Conclusions
U-Tool
U-Tool allows us to monitor the activity of a hashtag or a
geolocated position
@mrebollo UPV
U-Tool: A Urban-Toolkit for enhancing city maps through citizens’ activity

21. Introduction UTool Conclusions
U-Tool
Individual tweets can be visualized over the map to check their
distribution and density
@mrebollo UPV
U-Tool: A Urban-Toolkit for enhancing city maps through citizens’ activity

22. Introduction UTool Conclusions
U-Tool
Conversations can be extracted from explicit mentions in the
messages and represented in a graph
@mrebollo UPV
U-Tool: A Urban-Toolkit for enhancing city maps through citizens’ activity

23. Introduction UTool Conclusions
U-Tool
Finally, the gravitational potential is calculated and shown when
tweets include their geographic ubication.
@mrebollo UPV
U-Tool: A Urban-Toolkit for enhancing city maps through citizens’ activity

24. Introduction UTool Conclusions
Conclusions
Conclusions
analytical tool for the activity of cities
combines geo-located activity from SS NN and open data
repositories
spacial model and complex network analysis in real-time
decision making assistance
Next steps
gravity map will be available in the opendata portal of the
Valencia’s City Hall
open the U-Tool dashboard to the public
@mrebollo UPV
U-Tool: A Urban-Toolkit for enhancing city maps through citizens’ activity