Large- Scale Opportunistic Sensing
PFlow: Reconstructing
People Flow Recycling
Large-Scale Social
Survey Data
Understanding people flow on a macroscopic scale requires
reconstructing it from various forms of existing fragmentary
spatiotemporal data. This article illustrates a process for
reconstructing such data using existing person-trip survey data.
M
onitoring dynamic changes
in people flow has become
increasingly impor tant
to m it ig at e s e cond a r y
disasters following earth-
quakes, fires, and other major events and to
relieve congestion in mass transit systems.
For instance, the accurate
Yoshihide Sekimoto, monitoring of people flow
Ryosuke Shibasaki, Hiroshi Kanasugi, could have been helpful at
and Tomotaka Usui a 2001 fireworks event in
University of Tokyo Akashi, Japan, where 247 of
the 150,000 spectators were
Yasunobu Shimazaki killed or injured when they
Pasco rushed to a pedestrian bridge.
Public facility managers also
need a comprehensive grasp of
people flow to design safe, comfortable spaces
and to develop appropriate urban transport
policies such as those for commuter trains.
Consider, for example, Shinjuku Station,
which with a daily ridership of approxi-
mately 4 million people, is the most crowded
station in the world. Understanding people
flow would also be useful in the commercial
advertising field, where the pricing of outdoor
advertising depends on each location’s traffic
volume.
Published by the IEEE CS n 1536-1268/11/$26.00 © 2011 IEEE PER VA SI V E computing 27
In technical terms, we can measure peo-
ple flow by tracking various measurements,
including
• the position of mobile objects, using GPS or
personal handy systems (PHS);
• the number of stationary people, using a
closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera;
• the number of passengers getting on and off
transportation facilities, using the number of
integrated circuit (IC) tickets passing through
automatic ticket gates;
• the number of stationary people, using the
number of registered mobile phones at each
base station, and
• the hourly number of visitors to department
stores.
However, the scope of many of these methods
doesn’t extend beyond data-acquisition tech-
nology. Such research doesn’t consider infra-
structure data that can give an overview of
the mass flow of people by integrating these
various forms of data. (See the “Related Work
in People-Flow Analysis” for a discussion of
some of the work in this field.) This is true
in terms of comprehensive qualities including
spatial and temporal accuracy, acquisition and
 Large-Scale Opportunistic Sensing

Related Work in People-Flow Analysis

S ome studies have proposed spatiotemporal data structures

for moving objects,1,2 whereas others have addressed meth-
ods for generating the spatiotemporal trajectories of moving
5. A. Crooks, C. Castle, and M. Batty, “Key Challenges in Agent-Based
Modelling for Geo-spatial Simulation,” Computers, Environment, and
Urban Systems, vol. 32, no. 6, 2008, pp. 417–430.

objects.3,4 However, none of these studies show examples of large-
scale realistic data. Furthermore, although some studies have
proposed agent-based simulations,5,6 these require basic people-
flow data to keep the simulations realistic. Meanwhile, studies on
vehicle activity integrating mobile phone data and traffic-sensing
data are increasing,7–9 and those on comprehensive human
activity using mobile phones are beginning to emerge.10–12
However, no one has proposed reconstructing the total state.
References
1. L. Ralph, D. Frank, and R. Kurt, “Scalable Processing of Trajectory-
Based Queries in Space-Partitioned Moving Objects Databases,”
Proc. 17th ACM SIGSPATIAL Int’l Conf. Advances in Geographic Informa-
tion System (ACMGIS 08), ACM Press, 2008, pp. 270–279.
6. Y. Ohkusa and T. Sunagawa, “Application of an Individual-Based
Model with Real Data for Transportation Mode and Location to Pan-
demic Influenza,” J. Infection and Chemotherapy, vol. 13, no. 6, 2007,
pp. 380–389.
7. J.C. Herrera and A.M. Bayen, “Traffic Flow Reconstruction Using
Mobile Sensors and Loop Detector Data,” Transportation Research
Board 87th Ann. Meeting, 2008; www.ce.berkeley.edu/~bayen/
conferences/trb08.pdf.
8. P. Mohan, V.N. Padmanabhan, and R. Ramachandran, “Nericell: Rich
Monitoring of Road and Traffic Conditions Using Mobile Smart-
phones,” Proc. 6th ACM Conf. Embedded Network Sensor Systems
(SenSys), ACM Press, 2008, pp. 323–336.
9. J. Krumm and E. Horvitz, “Predestination: Inferring Destinations
from Partial Trajectories,” Proc. 8th Int’l Conf. Ubiquitous Computing
(Ubicomp), Springer-Verlag, 2006, pp. 243–260.

2. O. Wolfson et al., “DOMINO: Databases for Moving Objects Track-
ing,” Proc. ACM Symp. Management of Data (SIGMOD 99), ACM
Press, 1999, pp. 547–549.
3. P. Partsinevelos, P. Agouris, and A. Stefanidis, “Reconstructing Spatio-
temporal Trajectories from Sparse Data,” Int’l J. Photogrammetry and
Remote Sensing (ISPRS), vol. 60, no. 1, 2005, pp. 3–16.
10. M. Gonzalez, C. Hidalgo, and A. Barabasi, “Understanding Individ-
ual Human Mobility Patterns,” Nature, no. 453, 2008, pp. 779–782.
11. R. Pulselli et al., “Computing Urban Mobile Landscapes through
Monitoring Population Density Based on Cell-Phone Chatting,”
Int’l J. Design & Nature and Ecodynamics, vol. 3, no. 2, 2008,
pp. 121–134.

4. D. Pfoser and Y. Theodoridis, “Generating Semantics-based Trajecto- 12. C. Ratti et al., “Mobile Landscapes: Using Location Data from Cell
ries of Moving Objects,” Computers, Environment, and Urban Systems, Phones for Urban Analysis,” Environment and Planning B: Planning
vol. 27, no. 3, 2003, pp. 243–263. and Design, 2006, vol. 33, no. 5, pp. 727–748.

process costs, and service value to the
user.
To provide a useful overview of
the mass flow of people, a dataset on
people flow must meet the following
requirements:
• Sufficiently large scale. The number
of surveyed people should be appro-
priate and unbiased to estimate the
actual total people flow in the real
world.
• Temporal completeness. The data
for an individual should contain spatio­
temporal data based on a realistic
minimum resolution (for example,
1 minute) to maintain a high query
speed.
• Realistic spatial accuracy. The data
for an individual should retain spa-
tial details consistent with infra-
structural map data to withstand
microscale application. However,
descriptions of spatial accuracy are
also required because of the cost limi-
tations for pursuing details.
Such a people-flow dataset could con-
sist of an individual’s location at each
minute. Moreover, this dataset could
be reconstructed from fragmentary
but large-scale spatiotemporal data us-
ing sufficient infrastructure data (such
as detailed road or railway networks)
and railway timetables. Source data
could include call-logging data for
mobile phones. For our work, we use
person-trip data obtained from public
transportation surveys because they’re
widely available if used for the public’s
benefit. Moreover, person-trip data let
us estimate the total number of people
because they’re obtained from unbiased
surveys sampling data from all ages.
Person-Trip Data
According to the Japan’s Ministry of
Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and
Tourism’s (MLIT) website (www.mlit.
go.jp/crd/tosiko/pt/map_e.html), as
of 2007, the MLIT and local govern-
ments had conducted person-trip sur-
veys in 61 cities (122 times) in Japan
over more than 40 years. These surveys
originally intended to capture the macro­
scopic aggregated flow in each area for
analyzing transportation on an urban
scale. Despite the data’s fragmentary
nature due to the limited locations
sampled (for example, residences, of-
fices, and nearest stations), person-trip
data are valuable because they docu-
ment the flow of disaggregated people
on a large scale.
Figure 1 shows a person-trip sur-
vey sheet distributed to approximately
10 percent of the residents in the Tokyo

28 PER VA SI V E computing www.computer.org/pervasive

 Place present at 3:00 a.m.
First place to go
Second place to go

Home Office or school

Other places (rough address)

Other places (place name)

Kind of place

Departure time
Arrival time
Trip object

Transportation mode
Travel time
Transfer point

Figure 1. Main portion of the person-trip survey sheet (from the Tokyo Metropolitan Region Transportation Planning
Commission website, www.tokyo-pt.jp/data/file/tebiki.pdf). This questionnaire requires entries on each place visited and each
trip between two places. Based on privacy considerations, the instructions require a place to be recorded as a rough address so
as not to specify the complete location. Each trip is to include a departure time, arrival time, and purpose. Moreover, each trip
is to consist of several subtrips (unlinked trips) with individual transportation modes, travel times, and transfer points.

metropolitan area. This questionnaire
requires entries on each place visited
and each trip between two places, in
addition to basic individual informa-
tion such as gender, age, and occupa-
tion. Because of privacy considerations,
the places are recorded as rough ad-
dresses to avoid specifying exact loca-
tions. Each trip must include a depar-
ture time, arrival time, and purpose.
Moreover, each trip must consist of
several subtrips (unlinked trips) with
individual transportation modes, travel
times, and transfer points. A transfer
point can be a subtrip’s destination as
well as the next subtrip’s origin.
The final number of people in the
sample was 722,000, excluding error
data from about 800,000 in the Tokyo
metropolitan area in the 1998 survey.
The total number of records was about
3.2 million—that is, each person pro-
vided data for about four to five sub-
trips. Furthermore, each described
place was recorded by the smallest
zone (that is, block zone) of the survey
zone code. There were more than
20,000 zones, each of which covers
several hundred to several thousand
people in the Tokyo metropolitan area
(Figure 2).
For our study, we used existing
person-trip data at the block zone level
as large-scale disaggregated fragmen-
tary data to reconstruct people flow.
This made it easy to reconstruct the
real world because the person-trip
data had an average magnification fac-
tor of about 40 to the total number of
people in each segment based on area,
gender, and age using National Census
data.
As of 2004, person-trip surveys
have been conducted not only in Japa-
nese cities but also in 52 cities in other
countries under a Japan International
Cooperation Agency (JICA) project,1
as Table 1 shows. This kind of survey
has also been conducted by US and UK
transportation departments in the form
of a Household Travel Survey.2,3 Thus,
because such public-sector person-trip
surveys are carried out in many coun-
tries, our reconstruction approach
could be applied to many cases.
Reconstruction Algorithm
The reconstruction process involves
three steps. First, we convert place in-
formation to latitude and longitude
(hereafter referred to as lat/lon) using
an address-matching process. Second,
each route is selected according to the
origin and destination positions of the
subtrip information based on road and
railway topologies. Third, the spatio-
temporal position is interpolated ac-
cording to the form of the people-flow
dataset based on detailed road and rail-
way geometries.
Address Matching
The origin and destination positions
are recorded by block zones and con-
verted to representative points of each
block zone for the lat/lon description.
Thus, although fragmentary, spatio-
temporal data can be acquired from the

OCTOBER–DECEMBER 2011 PER VA SI V E computing 29

 Large-Scale Opportunistic Sensing

Ibaraki prefect
(southern region)

Saitama prefect

Chiba prefect
Tokyo metropolitan
government

Smaller zone
(zone covering about 15,000 people
for regional planning) Total: 1,648
Kanagawa prefect

Block zone
(smallest zone
covering from
several hundred
to thousands for
Planning zone micro analysis)
(zone covering about 60,000 people Total: 21,967
for metropolitan area planning)
Total: 595

Figure 2. Zone system used in the Tokyo person-trip survey. Each described place of survey data was recorded by the smallest
zone (that is, block zone). These zones, each of which covers several hundred to several thousands of people, totaled over 20,000
in the Tokyo metropolitan area.

TABLE 1
List of person trip surveys.
Number of cities
Location and years Survey examples
Japanese cities 61 cities (1967 and on) Tokyo metropolitan area (1968, 1978, 1988, 1998, 2008)
as of 2007 Osaka metropolitan area (1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010)
Nagoya metropolitan area (1971, 1981, 1991, 2001)
Other cities 52 cities (1966 and on) Manila (1996), Damascus and Kuala Lumpur (1997), Bucharest and Managua (1998),
as of 2004 Tripoli, Phnom Penh, Chengdu, and Belem (2000), Cairo (2001), Jakarta and Ho Chi
Minh (2002), Hanoi, Nairobi and Lima (2004)

data on origin and destination position
(lat/lon) and time.
Route Selection and
Spatiotemporal Interpolation
For the person-trip data, each subtrip
has a unique transportation mode.
Therefore, when the data are recorded
in railway mode, the route can be esti-
mated from the minimum time by rail-
way timetables. In walking or driving
mode, the route can be estimated along
road networks through a minimum
route-search procedure based on the
Dijkstra method. Clearly there are some
risks in this process, such as gaps in the
actual state when the share of vehicles is
high with traffic congestion. This is be-
cause the route choices in this study are
based solely on minimum time. Further-
more, we mainly use the time/position

30 PER VA SI V E computing www.computer.org/pervasive

 Station
(11:45)
Subtrip 2
Home
(railway)
(11:42)

Subtrip 1 11:42 (Lat1,Lon1)

(walking) 11:43 (Lat2,Lon2)
11:44 (Lat3,Lon3)
Office
11:45 (Lat4,Lon4)
(11:54) Station 11:46 (Lat5,Lon5)
(11:49) 11:47 (Lat6,Lon6)
11:48 (Lat7,Lon7)
11:49 (Lat8,Lon8)
Subtrip 3 11:50 (Lat9,Lon9)
(walking) Railway 11:51 (Lat10,Lon10)
geometry 11:52 (Lat11,Lon11)
(green line) 11:53 (Lat12,Lon12)
(a) 11:54 (Lat13,Lon13)

Railway rough route

(blue line)

Walking Road Road

rough route topology geometry
(red line) (gray line) (gray line)

(c)

Railway
topology
(green line)

(b)

Figure 3. Spatiotemporal interpolation of position from origin and destination data (an example of one trip to the office for one
person). (a) One-trip data consisting of three subtrips for one person, (b) route selection from origin and destination data using
road and railway topologies (the latter linked specifically with timetables), and (c) spatiotemporal interpolation at 1-minute
intervals along detailed road and railway geometries.

data of the origin and destination posi-
tion instead of the travel time because
person-trip survey data in some met-
ropolitan cities other than Tokyo lack
travel times for subtrips.
After route estimation, lat/lon data
are spatiotemporally interpolated along
road and railway network geometries
to allow interpolation at 1-minute in-
tervals. Figure 3 illustrates each step
of this process for the spatiotemporal
interpolation of position from origin
and destination data using one trip in
central Tokyo. Figure 3a shows data for
a trip consisting of three subtrips for an
individual after the address-matching
process. Figure 3b shows route selec-
tion from the origin and destination
data of each subtrip using road and
railway topologies (the latter linked
specifically with the timetable). Figure 3c
illustrates the spatiotemporal inter­
polation at 1-minute intervals along
detailed road and railway geometries.
Improved Reconstruction
Using Infrastructure Data
Using infrastructure data helps ensure
we closely adhere to reality during the
reconstruction process. We use rail-
way timetables as the topology in route
selection. Choosing railway routes is
also necessary to reconstruct the total
people flow, which isn’t restricted to
vehicle flow. For railway timetables,
we use the available time data between
any two stations throughout Japan ob-
tained from a relatively inexpensive
API provided by Val Laboratory. The
other is the interpolation along de-
tailed network geometries. For road
and railway networks, we use Sumi-
tomo Electric System Solutions’ Digi-
tal Road Map (DRM) data, which in-
clude 4.67 million road network links
throughout Japan. Although such ad-
vanced infrastructure data are lim-
ited for Japan, similar data are more
widely available in other countries.
For example, Open Street Map (OSM)
can be used for road network data in
Hanoi. Railway timetables could also
be used, depending on the form they
take in each country.

OCTOBER–DECEMBER 2011 PER VA SI V E computing 31

 Large-Scale Opportunistic Sensing

TABLE 2
Volume of infrastructure data.

Road Railway
Area Topology Geometry Topology Geometry
Tokyo metropolitan About 1,331,000 nodes and 1,913,000 About 6,785,000 interpolation 1,455 stations 49,747 interpolation
area links in Digital Road Map (DRM) points in DRM links points in DRM geometry
Hanoi About 5,600 nodes and 3,600 links About 17,000 interpolation n/a n/a
in Open Street Map (OSM) points in OSM

denotes one of the following movement

Saitama station
Shinjuku station
Chiba station
Yokohama station
10 km
(a)
Shinjuku station
0.2 km
(c)
Figure 4. People flow reconstructed from person trip data in the Tokyo metropolitan
area at three scales: (a) large (entire Tokyo metropolitan area), (b) meso (central
Tokyo area), and (c) micro (Shinjuku area). Each dot represents a person, and each
color denotes a movement status.
Table 2 summarizes the volume of
infrastructure data used in this study.
In the Tokyo metropolitan area, the
railway topology consists of 1,455 node
stations, whereas the road network to-
pology consists of 1,331,000 nodes and
1,913,000 links in DRM. Moreover, the
road and railway network geometries
consist of 6,785,000 and 47,747 inter-
polation points, respectively, in DRM
links. On the other hand, for Hanoi
city, OSM has about 5,600 nodes and
statuses: blue (railway), yellow-green
Shinjuku station (private vehicle), red (pedestrian), yel-
Ikebukuro station low (bicycle), purple (business vehicle),
and aqua (two-wheeled motor vehicle).
Otemachi station Figure 4a shows the rough distribu-
tion of people in the morning for the
entire Tokyo metropolitan area. Many
people can be observed going to cen-
tral Tokyo using various railways (blue
Shibuya station dots). In suburban areas, on the other
2 km hand, private (yellow-green dots) and
(b) business vehicles (purple dots) are
highly visible. Figure 4b illustrates the
congestion along railway networks and
terminal stations during commute time
Legend in the central Tokyo area. For example,
: Railway crowds of people (red dots) can be ob-
: Private vehicle
: Pedestrian
served in the business and amusement
: Bicycle centers of Shinjuku, Shibuya, Ikebu-
: Business vehicle kuro, and Otemachi districts. Figure 4c
: Two-wheeled
motor vehicle
shows, in greater detail, the area
around Shinjuku station, where many
railways connect. In particular, we can
observe many pedestrians commuting
from Shinjuku Station (at the center of
the figure) to the Tokyo Metropolitan
Government on the left.
However, 2D visualization is lim-
ited in its ability to represent accurate
congestion data because some dots
3,600 links for the road network topol- overlap others during the process of
ogy and 17,000 interpolation points geocoding to the zone’s center. For this
for the road network geometry. reason, Figure 5 illustrates a 3D time-
series representation with a height axis
Results that indicates the number of people ag-
Figure 4 shows time-slice visualiza- gregated according to a 1-km 2 mesh.
tions at different scales (the entire This shows a drastic change between
Tokyo metropolitan area, the central daytime and nighttime (for example,
Tokyo area, and the Shinjuku area) between 8:00 and 9:00 and 18:00 and
based on the reconstructed flow for 20:00), especially in central Tokyo.
approximately 722,000 people. Each To verify the results of reconstruction
dot represents a person. Each color by spatiotemporal interpolation, we

32 PER VA SI V E computing www.computer.org/pervasive

 00:00 01:00 02:00 03:00 04:00

05:00 06:00 07:00 08:00 09:00

10:00 11:00 12:00 13:00 14:00

15:00 16:00 17:00 18:00 19:00

The number of people in each

1-km2 mesh
1-25 401-500
20:00 21:00 22:00 23:00 26-50 501-600
51-75 601-700
76-100 701-800
101-150 801-1000
150-200 1001-1500
201-250 1501-2000
251-300 2001-3000
301-350 3001-
351-400

Figure 5. People flow reconstructed in a 3D time-series representation with a 1-km2 mesh. The height axis illustrates a drastic
increase in people flow during peak hours.

compared our results with population
data from the National Census. Specifi-
cally, we compared the data with ag-
gregated mesh levels in the Tokyo area
at the same time slice because National
Census data include aggregate popula-
tion data at the mesh level during the
Figure 6b illustrates the correlation with
a fourth-level mesh of about 500 m 2 .
Although both correlation coefficients
are high (0.96 and 0.75), there is a clear
difference resulting from the resolu-
tion of address matching or geocoding,
because address matching is based on
visualization of about 79,000 people,
or 2.3 percent of the total, at three-hour
intervals. The aqua dots representing
two-wheeled motor vehicles are notable
at commuting time because the sharing
rate of a two-wheeled motor vehicle is
about 70 percent in Hanoi.

daytime and nighttime.
Figure 6 shows the correlation be-
tween the total number based on spatio­
temporally interpolated person-trip data
at 12:00 a.m. (multiplying the magni-
fication factor we mentioned earlier)
and the daytime population from the
2000 National Census. In particular,
Figure 6a illustrates the correlation with
a third-level mesh of about 1 km2, and
block zones and many more mismatches
occur at mesh levels of higher resolution.
Such a difference in the correlation coef-
ficient (0.85 and 0.50) can also be seen
for the nighttime comparison.
We also reconstructed the people flow
in Hanoi from the JICA person-trip data
obtained in 2004 (Table 1) using OSM
for the infrastructure data (Table 2).
Figure 7 illustrates the time-slice
O
ur proposed method,
which reconstructs dense
or continuous spatiotem-
poral positions from frag-
mentary data based on statistically un-
biased samples, realizes an appropriate
overview of people flow on an urban,
macroscopic scale. In addition, our
method can be applied to any existing

OCTOBER–DECEMBER 2011 PER VA SI V E computing 33

 Large-Scale Opportunistic Sensing

180,000 80,000

160,000

140,000
Number of people in each mesh

Number of people in each mesh

60,000
from interpolated PT data

from interpolated PT data

120,000
R = 0.75
100,000
R = 0.96 40,000
80,000

60,000

40,000 20,000
The number of The number of
20,000 meshes: 1,222 meshes: 3,422

0 0
0

00

00

00

00

00

0
0
,00

,00

,00

,00

,00

,00

,00
,00
0
0,0

0,0

0,0

0,0

0,0
20

40

60

80

40

60

80
20
10

12

14

16

18

Number of people in each mesh Number of people in each mesh

(a) from National Census (b) from National Census

Figure 6. Correlation between reconstructed people-flow data and National Census data. Comparison of the number of people
in each mesh for mesh sizes of about (a) 1 km2 (third-level mesh) and (b) 500 m2 (fourth-level mesh).

2 km 2 km 2 km 2 km

2 km 2 km 2 km 2 km

Legend
: Private vehicle : Pedestrian : Bicycle : Business vehicle : Two-wheeled motor vehicle

Figure 7. People flow in Hanoi reconstructed using JICA person trip data. The aqua dots representing two-wheeled motor
vehicles are notable at commuting time, because the sharing rate of a two-wheeled motor vehicle is about 70 percent in Hanoi.
The maps show the movement of people at three-hour intervals.

34 PER VA SI V E computing www.computer.org/pervasive

disaggregated fragmentary spatiotem-
poral data because we need only pre-
pare railway timetable data and net-
work geometry data for railways and
roads. Thus, our method enables the
establishment of sophisticated spatio-
temporal databases that can serve as
data infrastructure for various applica-
tions, such as simulations of influenza,
marketing, or secondary damage pre-
vention after disasters.
However, further studies are still nec-
essary. For example, in addition to min-
imum route selection, alternative route
distribution methods should be tested
to specify routes. Moreover, further im-
provement and parallel processing are
required to speed up the reconstruction
algorithm, which currently takes two
to 30 days for reconstruction in the
case of Tokyo with a single PC. Finally,
we plan to process person-trip survey
data from cities in other countries ob-
tained by JICA. In the near future, we
hope that call-logging data for mobile
phones will be applicable to semi-real-
time reconstruction of people flow.
Our reconstructed people-flow data
can be accessed on the People Flow
Project website (http://pflow.csis.
u-tokyo.ac.jp) and can be leased for
public benefit by CSIS joint research.
Acknowledgments
This work was partially funded by a Grant-in-Aid
for Young Scientists by Japan’s Ministry of Educa-
tion, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology.
Person-trip data were provided by the Ministry
of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism’s
(MLIT) and the Japan International Cooperation
Agency (JICA).
the Authors
Yoshihide Sekimoto is a project associate professor at the Center for Spatial
Information Science at the University of Tokyo. His research interests include
large-scale data processing of moving objects and infrastructure data manage-
ment. Sekimoto has a PhD in civil engineering from Tokyo University. He’s a
member of IEEE, ACM, GIS Association of Japan, Japan Society of Civil Engi-
neers, and Japan Society of Traffic Engineers. Contact him at sekimoto@csis.
u-tokyo.ac.jp.
Ryosuke Shibasaki is a professor at the Center for Spatial Information Science
at the University of Tokyo. His research interests include satellite and airborne
remote sensing for city modeling, tracking technologies for people and vehi-
cles, geospatial information gathering and integration among heterogeneous
systems, and the design and management of a common service platform of
geospatial information. Shibasaki has a PhD in civil engineering from Tokyo
University. Contact him at shiba@csis.u-tokyo.ac.jp.
Hiroshi Kanasugi is a project researcher at the Center for Spatial Information
Science at the University of Tokyo. His research interests include context aware-
ness, personal activity analysis, pervasive computing, life-log, and privacy-
preserving applications. Kanasugi has an MS in environmental studies from the
University of Tokyo. Contact him at yok@csis.u-tokyo.ac.jp.
Tomotaka Usui is a project assistant professor at the Center for Spatial Infor-
mation Science at the University of Tokyo. His research interests include spatial
information technology, traffic-behavior analysis, and intelligent transporta-
tion systems. Usui has a PhD in engineering from Nagoya University. He is
a member of the Japan Society of Civil Engineers (JSCE), GIS Association of
Japan, and the Information Processing Society of Japan. Contact him at usui@
csis.u-tokyo.ac.jp.
Yasunobu Shimazaki is a chief engineer at Pasco and a cooperative research
fellow at the Center for Spatial Information Science at the University of Tokyo.
His research interests include area marketing and people flow analysis. Shima-
zaki has an MS in computer science from Chiba University. Contact him at
yiaksa9955@pasco.co.jp.

References
1. A. Nakamura et al., “Introduction of JICA
Urban Transportation Development Sur-
vey Database,” Traffic Eng. (in Japanese),
vol. 39, 2004, pp. 39–43.

2. Calif. Dept. of Transportation, 2001–

2002 Calif. Statewide Household Travel
Survey—Final Report, 2002; www.dot.ca.
gov/hq/tsip/tab/documents/travelsurveys/
2000_Household_Survey.pdf.

3. UK Dept. for Transportation, The Use of GPS

to Improve Travel Data, 2003; www.dft.gov.
uk/rmd/project.asp?intProjectID=10883.

OCTOBER–DECEMBER 2011 PER VA SI V E computing 35