Transportation Economics in the 21st Century - Mobility Data

1.    PlaceIQ Exposure Indices

Anonymized and aggregated mobility data based on smartphone movements provided by PlaceIQ. Available from 2020-present, updated weekly.  The data provides a variety of exposure measures across and within states, counties, and CBSA’s.    

Data provided by Victor Couture, Jonathan I. Dingel, Allison Green, Jessie Handbury and Kevin R. Williams. 

• Device Exposure
• Location Exposure 

As used in: Couture, Victor, Jonathan I. Dingel, Allison Green, Jessie Handbury, and Kevin R. Williams. “Measuring movement and social contact with smartphone data: a real-time application to COVID-19.” Journal of Urban Economics, 2021. 

2.    Google COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports 

Mobility indices tracking movement patterns for a myriad of countries, and regions within countries. For example, in the United States, mobility is broken down by country, state and county. The indices make distinctions between trips for retail and recreation, grocery and pharmacy, parks, transit stations, workplaces and residences. Available from February, 2020 – present. 

• Data (as of Feb 16 2020)

As used in: Wilson, Dan. “Weather, Social Distancing, and the Spread of COVID-19.” FRBSF Working Paper 2020-23, June 2020.

3.    SafeGraph Weekly Patterns

Weekly data on cell phone trips between December 31st, 2018 – present, tracking the number of visitors to a point of interest (POI) in a given week. Each POI observation also includes information on visitors’ home census blockgroup. 

• Apply for Access 

As used in: Glaeser, Edward L., Caitlin S. Gorback and Stephen J. Redding. “JUE Insight: How much does COVID-19 increase with mobility? Evidence from New York and four other U.S. cities.”  Journal of Urban Economics, 2020.  

4. Speed and Congestion in U.S. Cities

Data provided by Prottoy A. Akbar, Victor Couture, Gilles Duranton and Adam Storeygard

• Stata dataset U.S. cities
• Stata dataset U.S. trips

As used in: Prottoy A. Akbar, Victor Couture, Gilles Duranton and Adam Storeygard (2023) “Mobility and Congestion in Urban India,” American Economic Review, 113(4): 1083-1111.