New paper in Sustainable Cities and Society

March 30, 2025

Hot off the press: Our latest work on using mobile data traffic to reveal the space-use efficiency of cities.

Occupancy rates of Bordeaux.

Yang, Y., Tang, Z. & Schläpfer, M. Assessing the space-use efficiency of French cities by coupling city volumes with mobile data traffic. Sustainable Cities and Society (2025). https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1krKC7sfVZHt7W

  • A random forest model predicts dynamic city populations from mobile data traffic.

  • Dynamic populations are combined with 3D city volumes to assess space-use efficiency.

  • A new dynamic measure for 3D volumetric space-use efficiency is developed.

  • Low space-use efficiency in the city centers is revealed.

  • Space-use efficiency shows strong spatial regularity linked to amenity distribution.

Columbia Affiliations
Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics
School of Engineering and Applied Science