From the very beginning of history, everyday life has been characterized by the necessity to move between different locations in the most efficient way possible. Nowadays a great number of people has access to many different means of transportation, so that for its volumes and heterogeneity Human Mobility can be seen as a complex system. The diffusion of ICT technologies such as Mobile Phones and GPS and the availability of free data about public transport disclose the possibilities of new quantitative analyses. These are the main reasons why the study of Human Mobility has recentely become one of the most interesting field in complex systems research. The understanding and characterization of human mobility patterns in urban environments has an impact in traffic forecast, urban planning and epidemic spreading studies. Moreover it could contribute to the reduction of the environmental impact of transportation systems.
The dynamics of transportation systems usually takes place over well-structured environments that can be described within the framework of network theory and it has been shown how the statistical laws governing the dynamics of the agents acting in such systems can be derived in the more general framework of Complex Systems.
Following these main research lines we are interested in the analysis of large datasets about Human Mobility and transportation systems, as well as in the development of models capable of giving insights about their functioning. We are also interested in the development of mobile phone applications that could help to inform users in order to improve the efficiency of their movements, while collecting data about their habits in order to trigger new scientific studies.