Cuba carries out big data analysis regarding mobility patterns

HAVANA, Cuba, Mar 25 (ACN) The first analyses on big data (data intelligence) in Cuba open a range of possibilities to know the behavior of mobility and the processes that depend on it, said today, in Havana, an authoritative voice in that set of technologies.

As part of the International Convention and Fair Informatica 2022, Alejandro Lage Castellanos, director of the Complex Systems Center of the University of Havana (UH), explained that the different models are generated by mobile telephony, with the correlation between data from cell phones and cellular signal towers of the Telecommunications Company ETECSA.

He commented that the data collected made it possible during the current pandemic to know the changes in mobility as a result of the measures to avoid COVID-19 infections, and served as a basis for epidemiology studies.

After the first package of measures adopted by the Government to face the epidemic, this indicator decreased by 50 %, as well as that of interprovincial trips of more than 100 kilometers, he said.

Before March 2020, when the first cases of COVID-19 were detected in the country, an analysis by the Center for Complex Systems identified 7 million trips in the capital on 12 regular days (from Tuesday to Thursday), separating users who had a nighttime (home) and daytime (work) location.

Lage Castellanos explained that another institution that can promote projects based on mass data is the Ministry of Transportation (MITRANS), with which they are currently developing the Sustainable Urban Mobility program.

The studies make it possible to know indicators such as the average waiting time at urban transport bus stops and the peak departure and arrival times of users at home, he affirmed.

According to the professor from the UH Faculty of Physics, the analysis of large volumes of data uses international standards and security is guaranteed because the data is kept anonymous.

No primary data can be made public and entitled to do total number analysis that has no privacy sensitivity, Lage stated.
The 18th International Convention and Fair Informatica 2022 concludes this afternoon at the Convention Center.