Extracting origin destination information from mobile phone data

Traffic origin destination data is one of the most important pieces of information required for effective network management and strategic planning. Origin destination (OD) matrices provide an estimate of the number of vehicles travelling between points on a network over a given period of time. Accurate origin destination matrices are required in assignment models, but have a wide variety of other uses. At TRL both the assignment model CONTRAM8 and the microscopic simulation model SISTM require OD matrices as input, as do almost all existing traffic models. For future applications, the Highways Agency are likely to require a national OD matrix, covering the trunk road network in the UK.