1. Urban mobilities and communication practices Dana Diminescu and Christian Licoppe Social Science Department, Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications, Paris Zbigniew Smoreda and Cezary Ziemlicki Sociology and Economics of Networks and Services Laboratory, France Telecom R&D, Issy-les-Moulineaux

2. 2 London 2007, 19th May Two traditions, one world Paradigm of mobilities ( Sheller & Urry, 2005 ) –The displacement paradigm: moving to go somewhere to do something –The mobility paradigm: turning mobility, communication and ongoing activities into a creative performance Paradigm of communication ( Licoppe & Smoreda, 2006 ) –Mobile and connected users can maintain a 'tele- cocoon' with their proximal social network –The emergence of "connected presence"

3. 3 London 2007, 19th May An experimental research project Mobile phone as a key resource in the development of the mobility paradigm Mobile use can generate traces of places visited and communication acts performed A mobile-based tracking method and protocol to analyze: –mobility patterns –mobile communication –the interplay between both A test sample in Paris 2004/2005

4. 4 London 2007, 19th May Method

5. 5 London 2007, 19th May Research protocol 1)an empirical apparatus for collecting and aggregating data concerning the locations of users and their communication practices 2)two series of interviews over ten days, in which subjects were shown these objective data and questioned about their interpretation 3)use of the previous interviews to qualify the data gathered over several months

6. 6 London 2007, 19th May Apparatus for collecting and aggregating data Probe adapted to the Symbian OS Recording every action accomplished on the mobile phone (sending, reading, suppressing SMS and MMS) Recording events figuring in the « call diary » Constant monitoring and recording of current cell through geo-location of terminal with respect to cell identity Easy to install and to remove (but currently adapted to a single terminal) Data are recorded and stocked on the terminal through the probe Transfer to a server through automatic synchronization Transparent to users

7. 7 London 2007, 19th May Raw dataCell_id translated into street addresses In-call Move In-SMS Out-call WAP session Linking events to the places they occur in

8. 8 London 2007, 19th May Aggregating data into meaningful time chunks Building maps representing mobility and communication patterns for interviews Aggregating data so as to determine duration of stays in a particular cell as well as the communication events occasioned during that stay (incoming and outgoing calls, SMS, MMS, etc.)

9. 9 London 2007, 19th May Activity and communication data presented to the interviewee

10. 10 London 2007, 19th May Interviews Eliciting user narratives through confrontation with data-based diaries of their mobility and communication patterns: 1.first interview to assess socio-demographic data, identify correspondents and patterns of behaviour and coordination, 2.second one to confront users with data collected in the week prior to the interview.

11. 11 London 2007, 19th May A confrontation of user with data collected in the week prior to the interview shows: –a need to give meaning to data events (staying in a cell, changing cells, giving a call to a given number at a particular place and time) –that surveillance data are meaningless without a lot of user- centered information that needs to be provided by persons A self-imposed pressure on the part of subjects : –to reconstruct their own narratives (emic) accounting for as much as possible of the presented data (etic) –to resolve perceived inconsistencies between data and their own accounts Interview 2

12. 12 London 2007, 19th May A test sample in Paris Last ten years: Routine work Stable work with flexible patterns Unstable flexible work Precarious work situations Did not change place of residence 1 male 1 female Changed place of residence in France Changed places with stays abroad 24 people aged 30-45 with child(ren) (migrants and non-migrants)

13. 13 London 2007, 19th May Mobilities, Mobile Communication, and Activity Patterns

14. 14 London 2007, 19th May Contrast n°1 Paradigms for mobilities ( Sheller & Urry, 2005 ) The displacement paradigm: moving to go somewhere to do something The mobility paradigm: turning mobility, communication and ongoing activities into a creative performance

15. 15 London 2007, 19th May Oscar: frozen, mute mobilities 35, male, married, software engineer in a public institution Three moorings Fixed workplace Home n°2 in the suburbs of Paris (week) Home n°1 in Normandy where wife lives (week-ends); tries to find a job there Sharp time boundaries between work, leisure and mobility Complex but repetitive mobility Uses many kinds of transportation (train, two cars, subway/urban train, walk etc.) Pendular, goal-oriented mobility Restricted mobile communication patterns centred on wife marginally with parents and a few friends

16. 16 London 2007, 19th May Large scale mobility patterns (mostly week- end, for private purposes) Short scale mobility patterns (mostly workdays, mostly related to work)

17. 17 London 2007, 19th May Mobility patterns - time spent at home (workdays over six months) Mobility patterns - time spent at work (workdays over six months) Mobility patterns - time spent on travel and stations (workdays over six months)

18. 18 London 2007, 19th May Workdays mobility patterns superposing identified locations (over six months) In average 85% of time over six months is spent in places identified during one week

19. 19 London 2007, 19th May Sandrine: Creative, communication-laden mobilities Making each situation into an opportunity 37, W, lives with companion in Paris, one child born during study Varied occupations in the moviemaking sector Teaches, cuts her own movies, act as production assistant and occasional location scout for movies Complex mobility and connectivity Uses all kinds of transportation means with several fixed and transitory workplaces Adapts her displacements to her work constraint : no long term regularities Many contacts are made on the move Communication patterns are dense Mix private and professional (many professional contacts) Time boundaries between work and leisure are blurred Mobility skills and communication skills are interwoven to fulfil tasks on the move The work of preparing for the next job is as effort-consuming as the next job itself

20. 20 London 2007, 19th May Short scale mobility patterns (Paris and surroundings)

21. 21 London 2007, 19th May Occupation of places during workdays (over six months, according to time of day) Outgoing phone calls (workdays) Voicemail use (workdays)

22. 22 London 2007, 19th May Contrast n°1: synopsis Some subjects actually embody the displacement paradigm or the mobility paradigm in their mobility and communication practices Of particular relevance to the mobility paradigm: flexible and precarious work contexts Our data makes visible the "work of preparing for the next job" –Specific mobility patterns: many short-time workplaces –Specific communication patterns: the mobile phone to keep social networks alive

23. 23 London 2007, 19th May Propensities to call from a given place in a given time

24. 24 London 2007, 19th May Measuring the joint dynamics of mobility and communication (1/2) Some existing data about the number of mobile phone calls from a given place: The majority of calls is given from fixed places such as the home or the workplace With our methodology we can measure more refined indicators such as the number of calls emitted by the user from a given place, in a given time (propensities to call per place per time) The informative value of a more refined indicator. John gives 28% of his calls from home, but spends 69% of his time there, so that his propensity to call from home per unit of time is : 0.41 He spends 7.7% of his calls during transportation time, but this accounts for 1% of his time only so that his propensity to call during such mobility is 7.7

25. 25 London 2007, 19th May Measuring the joint dynamics of mobility and communication (2/2) Propensities to call from home are systematically low Propensities to call from the workplace vary a lot across the sample Highly contingent on the work context Propensities to call in mobility contexts are very high, consistently throughout the sample True both for such different profiles as Oscar and Sandrine (who will differ in the number of calls and nature of calls) Mobility contexts affords mobile communication a lot

26. 26 London 2007, 19th May Conclusion

27. 27 London 2007, 19th May What have we shown here? How to use location data and mobile communication data so as to map user behaviour over extended periods of time How to combine such quantitative data with qualitative information to move from locations to places How this methodology provides insight on the way the mobility and communication behaviour of users fit current discussions of the transformation of mobility paradigms How to construct new indicators that shed light on the specific ways mobility contexts particularly favour mobile communication

28. 28 London 2007, 19th May Thank you