MOBILE POSITIONING AS A POSSIBLE DATA SOURCE FOR INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL SERVICE STATISTICS

1. MOBILE POSITIONING AS A POSSIBLE DATA SOURCE FOR INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL SERVICE STATISTICS Jaanus Kroon Statistics Department, Bank of Estonia UN CONFERENCE OF EUROPEAN STATISTICIANS Seminar on New Frontiers for Statistical Data Collection 31.10.2012, Geneva

2. Outline • Background of the “story” • Exploring alternative data sources • The phenomena of mobile positioning • Methodological aspects • Estimation of inbound travel • Estimation of outbound travel • Co-operation model • Conclusions

3. Background (1) • Bank of Estonia - a provider of official statistics in Estonia, • responsible for • Monetary & Financial Statistics • External Sector Statistics • Balance of Payments, reflecting cross-border transactions, consists of many sub-items, including • Current Account • International Trade in Services • Simplified algorithm for “Travel Services” • exports and imports by countries Number of travellers x Length of stay x Daily expenditures + Prepaid travel agency and hotel services + Expenditures of short-term workers and students Border-crossing statistics

4. Background (2) • Data sources for Border-Crossing Statistics • Changing environment • 2004/2007 Entering into the Schengen: abolishment of border-controls • Exploring alternatives (2007…) • 2008… The economic crisis and remarkable budget cuts of NSI Poor coverage Since 2007, only Extra-EU flows Secondary data source Cancelled since 2010 Cancelled since 2010

5. Exploring alternatives (1)

6. Exploring alternatives (2) • Mobile positioning as the final choice • High quality, cost effective, low labour intensive • Availability of potential partner experienced in using mobile positioning data in urban and regional geography/planning • Department of Geography, University of Tartu (Estonia) and spin-off company, Positium LBS. • Scale effect: regular data exchange, calibration surveys • Cooperation contract for data collection methodology and models • 2008-2010

7. The phenomena of mobile positioning • Mobile positioning - locating (pinpointing) mobile telephones using radio waves • Active mobile positioning - tracking the location of mobile phones in real time through a network of antennas • Passive mobile positioning - uses location and activity information from historical log files stored by mobile service providers (for charging clients)

8. Methodological aspects (1) • Presumable residence of phone owners is determined by the registration country of the SIM-card • The methodology is based on the anonymised patterns of roaming activities of mobile phones • bynon-residentsin resident reporting operator network (inbound travel) • by reporting operator domestic clients in networks abroad (outbound travel) • Country and region specific aspects should be taken into account when determining calculation algorithms: • Same-day visits • Exclusion of transit travel • Overnight visits and length of stay • Exclusion of long-term stay • Exclusion of “cross-border noise”

9. Methodological aspects (2) • From the statistical point of view, mobile owners are a representative large sample within a statistical population whose spatial behavior and characteristics in time can be extended to the entire population • Extension coefficients (weights) take into account when grossing up • Market share of reporting mobile operators • Mobile phone usage traditions • abroad by age and social groups • in Estonia by visitor country

10. Inbound travel (1) • Number of travellers • number of roamed cell phones in domestic net • Length of stay • days between first and last activity • Border countries: 2 visits 2 and 3 days • Other countries: 1 visit 8 days Roaming activities per day by single mobile phone

11. Inbound travel (2) • Cross-border noise • Certain antennas should be detected and excluded • sea transit, random border switching

12. Inbound travel (3) • Transit travel • Antennas in 10 transit corridors are detected and excluded • Sea ports • Airports • Road transit corridors

13. Inbound travel (4) • Results

14. Inbound travel (5) • Quality

15. Outbound travel (1) • Number of visits • number of domestic phones roamed in foreign networks • Lenght of stay • days between first and last activity In Estonia Abroad

16. Outbound travel (2) • Elimination of cross-border noise • registration of phone roaming by Estonian residents that are incidentally in the coverage area of foreign mobile operators • Destination and transit country • Analyses of the travel pattern according to the length of stay and number of countries visited per day • One of the criteria is the distance from Estonia • Long-term visits (residents working or studying abroad) • Stay for over 183 days during the past 12 months.

17. Outbound travel (3) • Example: number of days by countries visited

18. Outbound travel (4) • Example: the quality • “Blue” – official statistics until 2009 • “Red” – mobile positioning results Egypt Turkey

19. Co-operation model

20. Conclusions (1) • Advantages • In time data • information as co-product is already stored by mobile operators as the owner of the data source • Cost effective • No direct costs associated with the network of interviewers • No burden for travellers as potential respondents. • Disadvantages • Tailor made methodology (universal does not exists) • Legal and privacy issues • Sophisticated data processing and storage • Co-operation with mobile operators as statistical reporters • Sampling and calibration issues (total population is unknown) • models need to be re-estimated according to changes in economic environment • Unknown future / technical progress (ww wifi, internet phones etc.)

21. Conclusions (2) • Challenges • Mobile positioning has wider possibilities to serve official statistics as a data source in • Regional visitor statistics • Domestic travel statistics • Detailed and specified research • Etc. • In Estonia it would be legally possible to request data on mobile positioning directly from the source to serve official statistics • First priority to already collected, readily available data

22. References • International Recommendations for Tourism Statistics 2008. United Nations 2010. • Mobiilpositsioneerimisel põhinev väliskülastajate turismistatistikute uuring. OÜ Positium LBS, Eesti Pank; Tartu 2009. • Mobiilpositsioneerimisel põhinev väliskülastajate turismistatistikute uuring: penetratsioonimudeli kirjeldus. OÜ Positium LBS, Eesti Pank; Tartu 2009. • Mobiilpositsioneerimisel põhinev Eesti residentide välisturismistatistikute uuring. OÜ Positium LBS, Eesti Pank; Tartu 2010. • Tiru, M. & Ahas, R., “Using mobile positioning data for tourism statistics: methodological and legal issues”. 10th International Forum on Tourism Statistics, Portugal 2010. • Ahas, R., Tiru, M., Saluveer, E. & Demunter, C., “Mobile telephones and mobile positioning data as source for statistics: Estonian experiences” Conference on New Techniques and Technologies for Statistics, 2011. • Ahas, R. Aasa, A., Roose, A., Mark, Ü., Silm, S. 2008. Evaluating passive mobile positioning data for tourism surveys: An Estonian case study. Tourism Management 29(3): 469–486.

23. THANK YOU! jaanus.kroon@eestipank.ee