Using YouTube data to analyze human continent-level mobility

Abstract

An increasing amount of publicly available geo-referenced data enables the identification of patterns of behavior, habits and movements of people. This paper presents results of a case study analysis based on data ser containing publicly available geo-referenced videos downloaded from YouTube, tagged as recorded in Africa. Our goal was to determine major routes of movement across the continent, to determine when people start their trip and the basic means of transportation used. The paper presents results of the analysis conducted on 113.157 unique YouTube records. We were able to identify major travel routes, directions, carriers and even flights favored by people traveling across Africa, information that is potentially valuable to disease outbreak management, airline industry, etc.