Modeling Disparities in Accessibility to Essential Services Under Disasters Using Large-scale Mobility Data

Project Objetives

•To understand how people get access to a variety of critical facilities

•To analyze human mobility patterns in relation to income segregation patterns before, during, and after a natural disaster

•To reveal mobility disparities between low- and high-income areas

Data and Results

• Large-scale mobile phone data provided by the SafeGraph company is used

• A dynamic mobility network is constructed to describe the footprint of people, leveraging optimization techniques and iteration methods

• People living in low-income areas tend to have low access to essential service before, during, and after the disaster

• Mobility patterns in response to the disaster are heterogeneous and influenced by socioeconomic status

• Facilities with smaller catchment areas are found to have higher degree of segregation 

Significance

• This project offers a new venue for better understanding human behaviors under natural disaster through human mobility networks. This could inform equitable resource allocation in disaster management

• The next step is to develop a human-centric framework for resource allocation to ensure the fairness and efficiency

Significance

• This project offers a new venue for better understanding human behaviors under natural disaster through human mobility networks. This could inform equitable resource allocation in disaster management

• The next step is to develop a human-centric framework for resource allocation to ensure the fairness and efficiency