Leaders in location data for out-of-home advertising industry and our partners at Posterscope did a thorough analysis of pedestrian and automotive traffic across US, discovering a major behavioural movement shift after the 16th March address by the Prime Minister, when it was recommended to work from home wherever possible. This is despite the growing concerns and news coverage over the coronavirus in late February/early March. Cities with high volumes of professional services workers (office-based) were the most reluctant to leave their city centres, and large cities with international travel connections have been hit hardest (London/Manchester etc). Locomizer contributed to this research by supplying its own analytics on geo-behavioural trends. Check the animated infographic that Posterscope posted on their website on this subject.

The Centre for Cities, a London-based independent, non-partisan research organisation, and Locomizer have joined our efforts to produce data-driven insights on a change in people behaviour caused by the outbreak of coronavirus.

As we all know, Coronavirus has very much constrained where we can go and what we can do. Behaviour changed substantially after the Prime Minister’s call for people to practise social distancing, especially in London and other large cities.

The Centre’s first article last week showed how workers responded to the unfolding coronavirus crisis – those who work in city centres started to change their behaviour before official advice, and the scale and the pace of the response were the biggest in London and large cities. But what about those travelling into city centres on Saturdays?

Using anonymised and aggregated mobile phone data from Locomizer helps us answer this question. Read more…