Project description
Privacy prototype generating synthetic human mobility trajectory data
Traveller location history data is valuable for applications such as city planning and tourism, enabling new business models. However, privacy concerns, high costs, and ethical issues complicate its use. The ERC-funded PHOTO project will develop a prototype for generating synthetic human mobility trajectory data from mobile in-app data, preserving essential mobility patterns while mitigating ethical risks and reducing costs. This synthetic data will include trip-activity chains and be available in formats such as counts, origin-destination matrices, and urban analytics indicators. Potential users include transport planning departments, local governments, mobility service providers, and industries related to intelligent transportation systems.
Objective
People travel and leave their location history as mobility trajectory data. This data is invaluable for a wide range of location-based services, including city planning, traffic control, disease transmission and optimal control, trade area analysis, location-based marketing, and tourism, consequently leading to the rise of new business models. Recognising these opportunities, governments and industries have increasingly invested in exploring data-driven solutions. However, data challenges persist due to reduced data resolution from privacy concerns, high deployment and processing costs, and conflicts of commercial interests. Recently, ethical considerations regarding human location data have become even more critical. It remains unclear how organisations, regulators, and policymakers can effectively support the use, sharing, and reuse of location data across the geospatial ecosystem in ways that maximise public benefits. There is an urgent need to address these spatial data (not limited to trajectory data) access challenges, particularly for researchers and data analysts. We propose using synthetic data sets as an alternative to the original data sets, which could provide equal access, lower costs, and minimise ethical risks. Along this long-term pathway, this project aims to develop a prototype human mobility trajectory data generator, producing synthetic human trajectory data from original mobile in-app data. The synthetic data should enhance the original data while preserving essential human mobility patterns. The basic data will be in the form of trip-activity chains. Derived data sets could be in any commonly used format, e.g. counts, origin-destination matrix and indicators, meeting various applications in urban analytics and eliminating ethical concerns. There is a broad range of potential end-users, including the transport planning department, local governments and organisations, mobility service and facility providers and ITS-relevant industries.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC-POC - HORIZON ERC Proof of Concept Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2024-POC
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
WC1E 6BT LONDON
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.