Defining daily urban systems from individual everyday behaviour: A time-geographic perspective on census commuting flows and mobile phone location data

We use the theoretical and conceptual apparatus of the time geography to follow the way from individual behaviour in time-space to the definition of daily urban systems (DUSs). We proceed from locations, through areas organised around the locations and time use limits within the areas towards the aggregation of activity time-spaces into DUSs. We stress the importance of the concept or origin and destination anchor points, rhythms of individual movements and the principle of return. Using two datasets, the sum of daily labour and school commuting census data and the mobile phone location data, we apply regionalisation algorithm to define respective DUSs. We discuss their self-containment with regard to the time-geography, and we compare two spatial patterns. We conclude that, despite the distinctions between the datasets, spatial patterns are very similar. We acknowledge the viability of the relation between DUSs and the time geography and mutual enrichment of both concepts.