The impact of structural limiting and changing on human mobility properties: a network perspective

The modeling of human mobility patterns has significant implications for traffic management, urban planning, and epidemic control. Individual-mobility models subject to urban spatial infrastructure constraints are understudied. This paper extends the exploration and preferential return model by integrating actual distance-based decay functions while considering node attributes, network topology, and trajectory characteristics. The model constructed in this study can be applied to transportation networks, reveals that network size significantly influences individual diffusion rates, while network structural constraints limit the scope of mobility patterns. By examining human mobility at both individual and microscopic levels within network structures, this study advances our understanding of network-based travel behaviours. It also shows the trade-offs that happen when you try to use simple mobility rules in complex real-world geographic settings.