Your ultimate guide to mobility data 

Key takeaways:

• Mobility data shows how people move but with context: Mobility data can track driving and other forms of transportation, including details about behavior and timing. This gives you a fuller picture than just knowing someone’s location.
• It’s more useful than basic location data: Mobility data adds meaningful context to raw GPS signals, making it more valuable for making decisions.
• Telematics powers mobility insights: This technology combines GPS, driving behavior, and environmental factors through apps or connected vehicles to collect mobility data in near real-time.
• It helps many industries: Mobility data improves operations across auto insurance, marketing, retail, city planning, and mobile apps, helping organizations serve customers better and work more efficiently.
• Privacy matters: Arity follows strict privacy practices to protect people’s information and maintain trust.

Introduction

You’ve probably heard terms like mobility data, location data, mobile location data, and device data. But what’s the difference, and why should you care?

This guide explains what mobility data is and how it differs from similar types of data. You’ll learn which industries use it most, how they apply it, what privacy challenges exist, and why this data benefits both businesses and society.

What is mobility data?

“Mobility” means how people get around. Mobility data tracks transportation and traffic patterns, enriched with additional context from telematics technology. It shows how people move through areas like neighborhoods or points of interest (POIs). At Arity, this data is aggregated and anonymized — collected in ways that protect individual privacy.

What is device data?

Device data is any information a mobile phone collects, including location data from GPS. When someone agrees to share device data, they consent to sharing data points from their mobile apps.

Over the past decade, technology improvements have made it possible to add more context to device and location data. When you enrich device data with additional information, it becomes mobility data.

What is telematics data?

“Telematics” is a relatively new term from the 1970s that combines “telecommunications” and “informatics.” According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it means “using computing, information technology, and telecommunications to send information over long distances.”

Telematics data is mobility data that gets transmitted wirelessly. Years ago, this data came from devices plugged into vehicles. Today, it’s transmitted wirelessly through mobile apps, connected cars, and other sources.

Telematics data includes driving behavior and location information. With added context, it shows the where, when, and how of traffic and transportation. This can include weather conditions, speed, direction, and geographic details. For example, if telematics shows someone “driving” at an airport on a runway, the system can determine they’re in a taxiing airplane, not a car.

This contextual enrichment can also include algorithms that turn telematics data into useful insights. One example is crash detection — a feature in consumer apps that can connect people with emergency services or their emergency contacts after an accident.

Where does mobility data come from?

Mobility data comes from several sources:

• Private companies like technology, mobility data, or transportation companies gather data through mobile apps when consumers agree to share it
• Sensors and IoT devices like smart traffic lights, road sensors, and connected vehicles
• Consumer mobile apps that track movement with user permission

Cross-sector relevance

Mobility data is not confined to one industry. Auto insurers use it to refine views of risk, pricing, and the customer lifecycle. Retailers and brands use it to connect real-world movement to merchandising, media, and store-level decisions. Public-sector and transportation organizations use it for planning, safety, and managing congestion and infrastructure. The definitions and sources below apply across these use cases; the industry sections later show how each sector tends to apply them.

How auto insurers use mobility data

Auto insurers use telematics and mobility data to grow profitably:

• Strategy: See how driving behavior changes in near real-time so you can better predict claim frequency and severity
• Marketing: Attract customers with the highest lifetime value, not just the most customers
• Pricing: Segment customers at quote time to avoid adverse selection and improve your quote-to-bind ratio
• Retention: Keep customers by offering competitive rates and a simple experience, especially as more people shop around
• Claims: Offset rising claims costs (from expensive car parts and other factors) by offering features like crash detection

How retailers use mobility data

Retail marketers use mobility data to better understand and reach their ideal customers. While basic location data shows where drivers are, mobility data adds context about driving behavior — enabling deeper insights and more relevant customer experiences.

With these real-world insights, marketers and advertisers can show highly targeted offers for products and services that match individual preferences and behaviors. This increases reach, reduces wasted ad spend, and provides more value to consumers because the ads feel relevant and timely.

For example, when retail mobile apps understand where consumers typically go, they can show relevant ads at the right time—like when someone is likely driving past a store location. Mobility data provides information that’s critical for understanding customers at this level.

Whether you want to see big-picture behavior trends or street-level traffic patterns, mobility data can unlock key insights. By understanding why, when, and where behaviors happen, businesses and transportation organizations can make smarter, more strategic decisions.

Whether you want to see big-picture behavior trends or street-level traffic patterns, mobility data can unlock key insights.

How cities and transportation departments use mobility data

Real-time data helps with city planning and traffic management. Mobility data informs infrastructure development, helping planners build more efficient transportation networks. By analyzing traffic patterns, local leaders can decide where to build new roads, bike lanes, or public transit lines.

Real-time traffic data can also optimize traffic signals, reduce congestion, and improve road safety. Smart traffic management systems can adjust signal timing based on current conditions.

What are the benefits of mobility data?

Mobility data helps organizations:

• Understand how people move so they can build better products and experiences
• Manage businesses where transportation is important
• Understand, predict, and manage risk
• Create better offerings based on points of interest

What are the challenges?

While mobility data offers many benefits, privacy is a key concern—especially when tracking individual movements. Data anonymity and regulatory compliance are essential.

Arity has created a principle-based framework to guide data collection, partnerships, and best practices. This ensures end users understand and trust how Arity and our partners handle their data.

Summary

Mobility data can help industries and organizations by providing valuable insights into how people move. Business and government leaders can use this data to strategically deliver better services and support to customers and the public.

As technology advances, mobility data collection and analysis will become even more precise, creating new opportunities and challenges. Using mobility data strategically helps organizations stay relevant and competitive in an increasingly data-driven world.