Estimates of the Ambient Population: Assessing the Utility of Conventional and Novel Data Sources

Abstract

This paper will critically assess the utility of conventional and novel data sources for building fine-scale spatio-temporal estimates of the ambient population. It begins with a review of data sources employed in existing studies of the ambient population, followed by preliminary analysis to further explore the utility of each dataset. The identification and critiquing of data sources which may be useful for building estimates of the ambient population are novel contributions to the literature. This paper will provide a framework of reference for researchers within urban analytics and other areas where an accurate measurement of the ambient population is required. This work has implications for national and international applications where accurate small area estimates of the ambient population are crucial in the planning and management of urban areas, the development of realistic models and informing policy. This research highlights workday population estimates, in conjunction with footfall camera and Wi-Fi sensors data as potentially valuable for building estimates of the ambient population.

Optimising for equity: Sensor coverage, networks and the responsive city

“…For example, within the UO network there are areas in the city centre in which air quality sensors are so densely located that they are not easily comparable with the lower granularity networks derived using a 500 metre spatially-optimised solution. Finally, the optimised demographic sensor networks consider the population as relatively immobile rather than ambient (Whipp et al 2021), with the exception of some representation of the "daytime" con guration of a city's residents, via the workplace population variable. Optimisation of sensor placement should also prioritise understanding the coverage of the population as they travel within the city, whether to work, school or other activities, rather than solely focusing on their home location (as is prioritised by data available from the Census).…”

Intersectional approach of everyday geography

“…To date, studies exploring daily people’s locations, ambient populations and everyday segregation have relied on different types of data (Müürisepp et al, 2022; Whipp et al, 2021). The more recent one refer to the digital traces that people leave with their mobile phones (Hanaoka, 2018; Jiang et al, 2016; Lenormand et al, 2015b; Olteanu et al, 2012; Song et al, 2010), their transportation cards (Zhong et al, 2016), their credit cards (De Montjoye et al, 2015; Louail et al, 2017) or their participation in social media – such as Twitter (Wang et al, 2018; Heine et al, 2021).…”