Conclusions

• Author: Sermi, F.; Iacus, S.; Vespe, M.; Santamaria, C.; Spyratos, S.; Tarchi, D.
• Pages: 45-45

7 Conclusions

The present work, in line with the literature on functional regions, puts in evidence on how

administrative borders are often different from the commuting patterns. Indeed, human

mobility naturally shapes these patterns. In this study, fully anonymised and aggregated

data provided by several European MNOs are used to identify a data-driven concept of func-

tional areas, named ‘Mobility Functional Areas’ (MFAs). By analysing 15 different countries

(14 member states: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Spain, Finland,

France, Greece, Croatia, Italy, Sweden, Slovenia, plus Norway) , we observe common ev-

idence. Though slightly changing every day, MFAs are essentially persistent in time and

present clear intra-weekly patterns. The mobility-restriction measures (lockdown) imple-

mented in different countries to limit the COVID-19 outbreak, have not only reduced the

volume of mobility but have had also a clear impact on the shape of the MFAs, showing a

clear ”shrinking” effect as expected. The level of enforcement of these measures can be

compared across countries by looking at the overall similarity matrices.

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