1. Center for Complex Network Research and Department of Physics, Biology and Computer Science, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
2. Center for Complex Network Research and Department of Physics and Computer Science, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556, USA
3. Center for Cancer Systems Biology, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA

Correspondence to: Albert-László Barabási^1,2,3 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to A.-L.B. (Email: alb@neu.edu).

Abstract

Despite their importance for urban planning¹, traffic forecasting² and the spread of biological^{3, 4, 5} and mobile viruses⁶, our understanding of the basic laws governing human motion remains limited owing to the lack of tools to monitor the time-resolved location of individuals. Here we study the trajectory of 100,000 anonymized mobile phone users whose position is tracked for a six-month period. We find that, in contrast with the random trajectories predicted by the prevailing Lévy flight and random walk models⁷, human trajectories show a high degree of temporal and spatial regularity, each individual being characterized by a time-independent characteristic travel distance and a significant probability to return to a few highly frequented locations. After correcting for differences in travel distances and the inherent anisotropy of each trajectory, the individual travel patterns collapse into a single spatial probability distribution, indicating that, despite the diversity of their travel history, humans follow simple reproducible patterns. This inherent similarity in travel patterns could impact all phenomena driven by human mobility, from epidemic prevention to emergency response, urban planning and agent-based modelling.

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