Who was going to tell Carme Artigas, at the end of January this year, when Nadia Calviño, the third vice president of the Government and Minister of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, chose her to occupy the Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence ( SEDIA). Just a month and a half after taking office, the state of alarm was declared due to the pandemic caused by COVID-19. And his department turns out to be key to coordinating some of the key technology developments using big data, algorithms, and artificial intelligence (AI).
In just one month, since the state of alarm was declared in Spain, and until today, there are already more than 200 innovation projects studied by SEDIA and that use AI as a primary element to help in the fight against the coronavirus . One of them, and perhaps now the most relevant, is the set of mobility studies during the health emergency of COVID-19, which makes it possible to have the displacement data of the entire population throughout the entire territory to thus contribute to decision making.
This is mobility in the state of alarm
Specifically, the mobility study promoted by the Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence, DataCOVID, which is being prepared by the National Institute of Statistics (INE), reflects that since the state of alarm was decreed, 85% of the Citizens have not moved from their area of residence to other places. This figure exceeds 90% in the weeks in which the recoverable paid leave was in force.
The complete aggregated and anonymized data have been made available to all the autonomous communities, and there are already 11 that are making use of them (Basque Country, Catalonia, Galicia, Andalusia, Asturias, La Rioja, Valencian Community, Aragon, Extremadura , Madrid and Castilla y León).
The studies, which provide complementary information, are aimed at knowing and characterizing mobility throughout the national territory during the health emergency of COVID-19, analyzing the variations in mobility derived from the application of containment measures, as well as identifying areas with more displacement or with a greater concentration of population.
The study of the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (MITMA) starts from the sample data of a single operator and is raised to a statistical projection on the entire population, while the INE has data from the three main operators in the country, Movistar, Vodafone and Orange. Similar analyzes on the mobility of people are being carried out in other European countries, such as Germany, Italy or Austria.
The use of mobile device positioning data, in an anonymous and aggregated way, guarantees strict compliance with Organic Law 3/2018, of December 5, on the Protection of Personal Data and guarantee of digital rights.
DataCOVID
The mobility study developed by the INE, and called DataCOVID, makes it possible to estimate the mobility of the Spanish population during the period of application of containment measures in relation to a normal situation. With the data provided by the mobile operators, the INE obtains the total number of mobile phones that move from one area to another and those that remain in the same areas. The results allow to know if, after the entry into force of the containment measures, population movements between territories increase or decrease, if there are areas with a greater agglomeration or influx, or if there are areas with a high concentration of population in relation to to their sanitary capacity.
In this way, results are obtained for the entire national territory, which is divided into some 3,200 mobility areas. This information allows a good approximation to the mobility or immobility of the population. Unlike other analyzes that can be carried out using mobile telephony, this project does not analyze the number of trips made, the trips made, or the distance traveled during them.
MITMA mobility analysis
In the analysis carried out by MITMA, daily mobility is compared with that of an equivalent standard week prior to the crisis. This was set in the week of February 14 to 20, 2020, which had a normal mobility behavior, as there was no public holiday in any autonomous community. The Ministry has taken advantage in this study of the experience acquired in the work already carried out in 2018 by the Ministry on the use of big data technology for the definition and quantification of interprovincial mobility at the national level.
The main conclusions of the study focus on the strong reduction in mobility that has occurred during the state of alarm, in line with the data already obtained through traditional means of road gauging, passenger measurement in the different modes of transport. transport etc., which are available throughout the Ministry. The results of the study are updated daily during the state of alarm and will also be done throughout the de-escalation period of the measures to control the COVID-19 pandemic.
