Analysis of human mobility and urban space occupation using mobile phone data

2022-05596 - Analysis of human mobility and urban space occupation using mobile phone data

Contract type : Fixed-term contract

Renewable contract : Oui

Level of qualifications required : Graduate degree or equivalent

Fonction : Temporary scientific engineer

Level of experience : Recently graduated

About the research centre or Inria department

The Inria research centre in Lyon (previously the Lyon branch of the Inria centre in Grenoble) is the 9th Inria research centre, formally created in December 2021. It brings together approximately 270 people (including 110 Inria employees) in 15 research teams and research support services.

Its staff are distributed at this stage on 2 campuses: in Villeurbanne La Doua (Centre / INSA Lyon / UCBL) on the one hand, and Lyon Gerland (ENS de Lyon) on the other. A third site should be opened in the course of 2022. The teams are mainly hosted with our partners. The centre's teams work closely with research and higher education institutions (ENS de Lyon, UCBL, INSA Lyon, etc.), their laboratories, and other research organisations in Lyon (CNRS, INRAE, competitiveness clusters, etc.), but also with Lyon and regional economic players. Many international collaborations are also underway.

The Lyon centre is active in the fields of software, distributed and high- performance computing, embedded systems, quantum computing and privacy in the digital world, but also in digital health and computational biology.

The Inria research centre in Lyon (previously the Lyon branch of the Inria centre in Grenoble) is the 9th Inria research centre, formally created in December 2021. It brings together approximately 270 people (including 110 Inria employees) in 15 research teams and research support services.

Its staff are distributed at this stage on 2 campuses: in Villeurbanne La Doua (Centre / INSA Lyon / UCBL) on the one hand, and Lyon Gerland (ENS de Lyon) on the other. A third site should be opened in the course of 2022. The teams are mainly hosted with our partners. The centre's teams work closely with research and higher education institutions (ENS de Lyon, UCBL, INSA Lyon, etc.), their laboratories, and other research organisations in Lyon (CNRS, INRAE, competitiveness clusters, etc.), but also with Lyon and regional economic players. Many international collaborations are also underway.

Context

This position is available in the Inria Agora team in the Lyon center, formed of 6 permanent researchers and 15 PhD students. The candidate will collaborate with Dr. Razvan Stanica (https:// perso.citi.insa-lyon.fr/rstanica/) from the Inria Agora team.

Assignment

Assignments :

The recruited person will conduct research on the topic of mobile data analysis. This is data collected by mobile network operators, covering large areas and populations, with numerous possible application, such as energy- efficient network resource allocation (e.g., 5G/6G), epidemic propagation, transportartion system design, user recommendation systems, urban planning in smart cities, or ride-sharing. The candidate will work on uniquely-rich datasets collected by French mobile operators, with the goal of understanding and predicting user mobility and presence.

For a better knowledge of the proposed research subject :

https: // hal.inria.fr/hal-03569051/document

https: // hal.inria.fr/hal-03277191/file/ACMTKDD2021-Hal.pdf

https: // hal.inria.fr/hal-01514398/document

Responsibilities :

The recruited person will design new data analytics solutions and will test them on large mobile networks datasets. The recruited person is expected to write reports and give presentations to academic and industrial partners (mainly network operators). A special attention will be given to the visualisation of results and their presentation to stakeholders and the general public.

Steering/Management : The recruited person will have the possibility to supervise student engineering projects and internships.

Main activities

Propose new analytical tools and research questions exploiting the mobile phone data. We dispose of uniquely rich datasets, rarely available to the academic community. The recruited person will have a lot of autonomy in exploring new ideas building on these datasets.

Extended analytics targeting the Covid-19 pandemic period. Several metrics have already been designed and used in the context of the Inria SafeCityMap project to analyze the impact of the lockdown period on human mobility (https: // hal.inria.fr/hal-03569051/document). These metrics need to be extended and evaluated over new datasets, which recently became available.

Analysis and forecasting of user attendance peaks. A detailed spatio- temporal analysis will look at the appearance of peaks in mobile phone data, depending on the hour of the day or the day of the week, for different geographical areas. Forecasting these peaks, using machine learning techniques, will be an important second element.

Mobile data online visualisation tool. A visualisation tool is needed to easily present the major results of the analysis to collaborators and to the general public. This tool will need to account for spatio-temporal human attendance characteristics, as well as for mobility flows. It will need to be flexible and support : different spatial and temporal visualisation options, according to datasets features ; independent and combined metrics computation and visualisation. The tool will allow an easy exploration of the spatial and temporal dimensions, while also allowing the integration of external data related to the same territory (but possibly with different temporal and spatial granularity).

Skills

The candidates should have a master or PhD degree on network and/or data- related topics. Experience with data analysis in Python or R is expected. Previous experience with GPU-based data analysis is welcome, but not mandatory.

Benefits package

Subsidized meals

Partial reimbursement of public transport costs

Leave: 7 weeks of annual leave + 10 extra days off due to RTT (statutory reduction in working hours) + possibility of exceptional leave (sick children, moving home, etc.)

Possibility of teleworking and flexible organization of working hours

Professional equipment available (videoconferencing, loan of computer equipment, etc.)

Social, cultural and sports events and activities

Access to vocational training

Social security coverage

General Information

Theme/Domain : Networks and Telecommunications System & Networks (BAP E)

Town/city : Villeurbanne

Inria Center : Centre Inria de Lyon

Starting date : 2023-01-01

Duration of contract : 10 months

Deadline to apply : 2022-12-31

Contacts

Inria Team : AGORA

Recruiter : Stanica Razvan / [email protected]

The keys to success

We are looking for somone passionate about wireless networks and data science, curious and ready to explore new fields.

About Inria

Inria is the French national research institute dedicated to digital science and technology. It employs 2,600 people. Its 200 agile project teams, generally run jointly with academic partners, include more than 3,500 scientists and engineers working to meet the challenges of digital technology, often at the interface with other disciplines. The Institute also employs numerous talents in over forty different professions. 900 research support staff contribute to the preparation and development of scientific and entrepreneurial projects that have a worldwide impact.

Instruction to apply

Defence Security : This position is likely to be situated in a restricted area (ZRR), as defined in Decree No. 2011-1425 relating to the protection of national scientific and technical potential (PPST).Authorisation to enter an area is granted by the director of the unit, following a favourable Ministerial decision, as defined in the decree of 3 July 2012 relating to the PPST. An unfavourable Ministerial decision in respect of a position situated in a ZRR would result in the cancellation of the appointment.

Recruitment Policy : As part of its diversity policy, all Inria positions are accessible to people with disabilities.

Warning : you must enter your e-mail address in order to save your application to Inria. Applications must be submitted online on the Inria website. Processing of applications sent from other channels is not guaranteed.