People Movement Data
Get a detailed view of how people move through cities, towns and public spaces.
Unlock the power of People Movement Data
Trips
See where people are travelling to and from.
Heatmaps
See where people are congregating or moving through.
Length of Stay
Discover how long people are staying in a location.
What is People Movement Data?
People Movement Data (sometimes called Human Movement Data) is a powerful geospatial data set that's gathered from millions of mobile device owners who have opted in to have travel data collected through a number of different mobile apps.
This data is then turned into more aggregate insights before being packaged into Planwisely to help you turn evidence into insights.
Uses highly accurate GPS data
Connects movements with the times at which they happen
Australia-wide coverage
5+ years of data available
Understand movement activity with Heatmaps
With Heatmaps, you can instantly see where people are spending their time and how people move through cities, towns and public spaces.
Zoom in to 20-metre hexagonal areas to easily and accurately view movement activity, even in relatively small spaces. Visualise heatmap data by individual quarters of the year - as far back as 2019 - or aggregate quarters for a broader analysis. You can even filter by day(s) of the week or hour(s) of the of day for a more customised analysis.
Uncover travel patterns with Trips
Understand travel patterns to and from an area using Trips.
Understand where people are travelling from - from suburbs to a state level - to identify trends and understand how far people are travelling to reach a location. Plus, you can go even deeper by filtering Origin-Destination (OD) data by weekday, weekend or even by time of day. Select an area as your trip origin or destination and the quarter(s) of the year you want to investigate to visualise your results on the map, in lists and graphs for you to use in your analysis.
Discover how people spend their time with Length of Stay
Understand how long people stay in a specific area, if that has changed over time and when they're visiting with Length of Stay.
View the busiest times of day and the length of time people are staying in an area - all visualised in simple graphs - to understand how well it is performing a place function. You can even filter length of stay data by weekend or weekday, allowing you to easily compare times and target your analysis for the periods that matter to your project.
Frequently Asked Questions
We get it, it’s a lot to take in. Here are some of the most common questions we get.
People Movement Data (sometimes called Human Movement Data) is a set of GPS signals that is collated from mobile device owners who have opted in to have travel data collected through a number of different mobile apps.
Each GPS signal contains a latitude and longitude, timestamp and an identifier linking the GPS signal to a device via a randomised identifier created by the data provider.
Mobile providers gather and package opt-in GPS signals from their users, which is then processed and licensed under strict conditions to prevent the identification of any individuals to which the data pertains.
This data is gathered from the Location Based Services (LBS) of devices like phones, cars and fitness trackers. LBS is a term that refers to software technology that uses a mobile device’s geographic location to provide a service or information to the user in real-time.
VLC (Veitch Lister Consulting), the creators of Planwisely, purchase the rights to use aggregated People Movement Data and safely repurpose it for the platform.
VLC processes the GPS signals that come together to form People Movement Data to obtain ‘dwells’ - which are periods of limited movement (<150m) - and trips that represent movements between dwells. Not all GPS signals will make up a dwell, and not all dwells will make up a trip. Therefore, the trips dataset will be smaller than the dwells dataset which will again be smaller than the initial set of GPS signals. Pseudonymised GPS signals are still sensitive information, so Veitch Lister Consulting then aggregates the GPS signals, dwells and trips by area.
Because it is derived from GPS location events, People Movement Data has a uniquely high level of spatial accuracy.
Meanwhile, the number of devices that contribute to People Movement Data accounts for 3-8% of Australia's population. To test whether this sample size is properly representative of people's travel behaviours, VLC has undertaken extensive ground truthing research. This includes: household travel surveys (both metropolitan and regional); pedestrian hourly profiles; traffic count profiles; shopping centre visitation profiles by day of the week; National Visitor Survey research to understand tourist visitations; and stadium attendance for major events. This research has demonstrated definitive correlations between these datasets and People Movement Data in ways that support the theory that People Movement Data is a highly accurate and valuable geospatial dataset.
Planwisely's People Movement Data aggregates overall movements and dwells, which means it can visualise travel behaviours and visitation patterns.
In addition to this, it is gathered from timestamped GPS data, it has the potential to demonstrate movement changes over time or during specific times of the day or night with a high level of spatial accuracy. Because of these facts, People Movement Data can uncover strategic insights for all manner of planning projects: urban and strategic planning, urban design, site selection, tourism, transport and traffic, Smart Cities, economic development, Placemaking, open space parks planning, recreation planning, Out Of Home advertising, social planning and other applications.