The Origin of Heterogeneity in Human Mobility Ranges

In the last decade, scientists from different disciplines discovered a great heterogeneity in human mobility ranges, since a power law characterizes the distribution of the characteristic distance traveled by individuals, the so-called radius of gyration. The origin of such heterogeneity, however, still remains unclear. In this paper, we analyze two mobility datasets and observe that an individual’s locations tend to be grouped in dense clusters representing geographical mobility cores. We show that the heterogeneity in human mobility ranges is mainly due to trips between these mobility cores, while it is greatly reduced when individuals are constrained to move within a single mobility core.