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Telecom operators have a lot of data about their subscribers. One of the most popular categories is geodata. This is a safe slice of information that helps develop infrastructure and domestic tourism.
Big cities are our present and future
The share of the urban population in the world is steadily increasing. According to the latest UN data, 55% of the world’s population lives in the urban environment, and by 2050 this figure will increase to 68%. Already now there are 12 states in which urbanization reaches 100%, and there are already more than 90 countries with urbanization of more than 30%. in 74%.
Cities are also growing. The largest of them – with a population of more than 10 million people – have long been called the word “megacity”. In 1950 there were only two of them: Tokyo and New York. By 1995, 14 megacities had formed on the planet, and today there are already 34 of them. According to UN forecasts, by 2030 the list will increase by another 9 positions. By the way, Moscow, with its population of almost 13 million people, has been listed in it for quite a long time, and St. Petersburg is confidently approaching the mark of a megacity with its 7 million population. It turns out that about 14% of the total population of the 145 millionth country lives in only two cities of the Russian Federation.
Of course, smaller cities are also actively growing and developing, although they are no longer given such attention in statistics. But this fact is extremely important in practice, because any city is a complex system and a large market for selling a variety of services and goods. Keeping track of everything “by eye” is simply impossible – you need special technological tools that will give food for thought. They will tell the business how to develop, what, to whom, where and how to sell. They will show the city administrations ways of further development and improvement of the entire infrastructure.
Analytics is the key to effective city development
Big data comes to the aid of analysts here, and mobile operators have the most of them in the city. Telecom companies know, for example, on what, how, where and when subscribers move. Or at what time and in what locations office employees are concentrated. By the behavior of subscribers, you can even understand which stores they go to. Of course, all these figures are considered in isolation from reference to specific people: they are massive and impersonal, but no less valuable for this. And there are a lot of them – the internal systems of telecom operators process huge data streams 24/7.
The resulting statistics are perhaps the only way to look at various aspects of the urban environment with an open mind. For example, it is possible to estimate with high accuracy the real number of people who live in a certain area or a separate building of a residential complex. And you can go much deeper: measure the distribution by socio-demographic strata, analyze the level of outflow of labor resources from the region. Plus, of course, you can monitor traffic flows and plan the development of the entire urban infrastructure based on the analysis of existing data according to a variety of criteria.
MegaFon became one of the first players in the market of such data in 2013. Even at the dawn of the formation of its geoanalytical system, the company’s experts found out that chord highways are vital for Moscow, and now, as we see, this idea is being implemented by the city authorities. By the way, it is the state that usually becomes the main customer of analytical reports generated on the basis of big data from telecom operators. They effectively complement their own data, allow them to correctly evaluate the planned urban development projects and make correct and cost-effective decisions. They are also used by research institutes, consulting agencies, transport model companies and other contractors working with government orders.
Solutions like MegaFon’s urban environment analytics system are extremely rarely standard. Almost always, a client comes with a specific request, according to which experts collect up-to-date data. If they already have, then it usually takes no more than three weeks to prepare a report. If the data is yet to be collected and analyzed, the project may take longer. Plus, of course, the timing of implementation is highly dependent on legal and bureaucratic subtleties. Sometimes the stage of work with the contract can take up to 80% of the time.
This raises a natural question: why can’t state-owned enterprises and research institutes collect data themselves? They can and successfully do it. For example, no one except themselves will place sensors on vehicles and equipment of public utilities. However, the data of telecom operators very well complement this picture, allow you to plan even better and more efficiently, to see everything from another angle. Any urban development project is always difficult and expensive, so the cost of a mistake is too high.
Standard solutions, however, also exist. In order for clients to get acquainted with how the analytics of the urban environment may look in principle, MegaFon sometimes compiles analytical reports without the possibility of changes and additions. They are much more affordable than custom-designed custom solutions, but in both cases, exact pricing remains outside the public field. Reference point: from hundreds of thousands to tens of millions of rubles.
The easiest way to see how big data-driven reports work in practice is to look at transport-related examples. For example, at the end of last year, MegaFon analyzed the entire transport system of Nizhnevartovsk. Based on impersonal information about the movement of subscribers, the company’s specialists compiled a matrix of residents’ movements between city districts. Thus, it was possible to identify the most popular destinations, the main hours of activity and the busiest sections of the route network. Now, based on this information, the authorities of Nizhnevartovsk are planning a large-scale program to optimize the city’s transport infrastructure.
Domestic tourism is growing, and big data helps to evaluate it
Another area in the development of which reports based on big data from telecom operators can be very useful is tourism. And not external, but internal, which in the current realities is especially important for our country. Experts from the World Tourism Organization believe that world tourism will return to pre-pandemic levels no earlier than 2024. However, these are data from January 2022, but already in February the world changed a lot again.
According to the Bank of our country, this year inflation is expected at the level of 20%, while the growth of incomes of the population is clearly not expected. Combined with the weakening of the national currency, this is a strong blow to the ability of people to travel outside the country. A reorientation to more accessible domestic destinations is inevitable. And this process began during the pandemic. Rostourism in 2022 expects the recovery of 90% of domestic tourism compared to the pre-pandemic 2019. The Association of Tour Operators in our country notes that at the end of 2021, the domestic tourist flow increased by 30% compared to 2020. Experts estimate the entire tourist flow at more than 55 million people, and this is a huge audience with which to work.
To do this, MegaFon has a special service – Digital Tourism. Based on how subscribers move within a country, an operator can create a range of extremely useful reports with completely de-identified data. The customer (again, these are mainly state-owned companies and their contractors) can obtain information about the number of tourists in a region or a particular city, the duration of their stay, points of attraction, overnight stays, and where people usually come from.
All this allows you to test hypotheses, on the basis of which the tourism infrastructure will then be improved. For example, if we see that this year there are many guests from the Urals in the Krasnodar Territory, then we can increase advertising activity in their home regions so that there are even more tourists. According to the information about the points of attraction, you can understand where there are not enough cafes, restaurants and hotels. If it became clear that especially many tourists gather in some places of the city, then you can put art objects in them, next to which everyone will be photographed – you will get a viral advertising effect in social networks. In addition, if you know the routes of movement of tourists, you can improve navigation in the city. And these are just a few examples of how customers use Digital Tourism analytical reports, in reality there are many more.