Mitigating biases in big mobility data: a case study of monitoring large-scale transit systems
Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Date
2025
Subject Area
place - north america, technology, planning - methods
Keywords
Big mobility data, data bias, mitigation, public transitnon, linear association, COVID-19
Abstract
Big mobility data (BMD) have shown many advantages in studying human mobility and evaluating the performance of transportation systems. However, the quality of BMD remains poorly understood. This study evaluates biases in BMD and develops mitigation methods. Using Google and Apple mobility data as examples, this study compares them with benchmark data from governmental agencies. Spatio-temporal discrepancies between BMD and benchmark are observed and their impacts on transportation applications are investigated, emphasizing the urgent need to address these biases to prevent misguided policymaking. This study further proposes and tests a bias mitigation method. It is shown that the mitigated BMD could generate valuable insights into large-scale public transit systems across 100+ US counties, revealing regional disparities of the recovery of transit systems from the COVID-19. This study underscores the importance of caution when using BMD in transportation research and presents effective mitigation strategies that would benefit practitioners.
Rights
Permission to publish the abstract has been given by Taylor&Francis, copyright remains with them.
Recommended Citation
Wang, F., Ban, X., Chen, P., Liu, C., & Zhao, R. (2025). Mitigating biases in big mobility data: a case study of monitoring large-scale transit systems. Transportation Letters, 17(4), 762-775.
