Abstract
Recent advances in human mobility research have revealed consistent pairwise
characteristics in movement behavior, yet existing mobility models often
overlook the spatial and topological structure of mobility networks. By
analyzing millions of devices' anonymized cell phone trajectories, we uncover a
distinct modular organization within these networks, demonstrating that
movements within spatial modules differ significantly from those between
modules. This finding challenges the conventional assumption of uniform
mobility dynamics and underscores the influence of heterogeneous environments
on human movement. Inspired by switching behaviors in animal movement patterns,
we introduce a novel "switch mechanism" to differentiate movement modes,
allowing our model to accurately reproduce both the modular structures of
trajectory networks and spatial mobility patterns. Our results provide new
insights into the dynamics of human mobility and its impact on network
formation, with broad applications in traffic prediction, disease transmission
modeling, and urban planning. Beyond advancing the theoretical and practical
understanding of mobility networks, this work opens new avenues for
understanding societal dynamics at large.