Understanding where people go, when and how they get there is valuable far beyond transport planning. It can help cities plan public services, businesses identify suitable locations, and authorities make better-informed decisions on infrastructure and urban development.

One of the most important tools for analysing these movements is an origin–destination (OD) matrix. It provides information about how many journeys take place between different locations, helping transport planners understand travel demand, identify important connections and assess how transport networks are being used.

However, creating an OD matrix using traditional methods can be a complex and resource-intensive process. Travel surveys typically require people to report how many trips they make, where each journey begins and ends, when they travel and which modes of transport they use. Collecting this information from a sufficiently large and representative sample takes time and resources. The results may also be affected by incomplete responses, reporting errors and limited geographical or temporal coverage.

What if we could make this information more accessible using data that already exists? This is one of the key questions behind OmniFlow.

Turning telecommunications data into mobility insights

OmniFlow explores how aggregated, privacy-preserving mobile network data can complement conventional traffic counts and travel surveys, providing new ways to understand mobility patterns across cities, regions and national borders.

The consortium has now achieved all technical milestones, demonstrating how data originating from telecommunications networks can be processed, transformed, visualised and validated for potential use in transport planning.

This process brings together the expertise of different project partners:

• BITĖ Lithuania and Bite Latvia provide the secure mobile network environment and MNO (Mobile Network Operator) signalling data, ensuring that data processing takes place with appropriate privacy safeguards.

• Telcofy AS, through its CityOS technology, processes MNO signalling data into GDPR-compliant mobility metrics, including origin–destination matrices and mobility flow indicators, using methodologies validated by Eurostat.

• MC Mobility Consultants carries out calibration and validation activities using reference traffic data collected in the pilot areas to assess the accuracy, reliability and practical applicability of the generated insights.

• Fits Traffic, developed by dots. (WeAreDots), integrates the resulting information into its platform, where mobility data can be accessed, visualised and applied through virtual traffic sensors.

This means that complex data originating from telecommunications networks can be transformed into information that municipalities and mobility professionals can work with.

For example, origin–destination matrices can help reveal connections between different parts of a city or region, while virtual traffic sensors can provide estimated traffic flows at locations where physical monitoring infrastructure is not installed.

The aim is not to replace conventional traffic data collection entirely, but to complement it with additional sources of information that could offer broader coverage and reduce the need for repeated, resource-intensive surveys.

From technical progress to practical applications

The progress achieved so far brings OmniFlow closer to making mobility data more accessible and useful for transport planning.

The project's two pilot partners, Šiauliai City Municipality Administration and Jelgava Digital Centre, play an important role in connecting these technical developments with real municipal needs. Through the pilots, the consortium is exploring how the generated insights could support traffic analysis, infrastructure planning and better-informed mobility decisions.

Looking ahead, OmniFlow aims to build on these achievements and explore wider applications, helping cities, regions and other stakeholders make better use of existing data to understand how people move.

27, October 2026