Introduction
iNode's Origin-Destination (OD) module is a powerful tool for uncovering how, when, and where people travel. By leveraging Floating Car Data (FCD), the module transforms raw GPS traces into actionable insights about trip origins, destinations, and movements across a region.
Metrics
The OD Module delivers the following metrics:
- Trip counts:
- Total trips analyzed within the study area
- Origin–destination trip volumes between region pairs (absolute count or percentage share)
- Incoming and outgoing trip counts per road segment or region
- Trip counts across origin–via–destination sequences
- Trip length:
- Distance traveled between origin and destination (km)
- Trip duration:
- Travel time between origin and destination (minutes)
- Trip timing:
- Number of trips by hour of day (start hour distribution)
Use Cases
Understanding travel patterns is essential for effective planning, policy, and operations. The OD Module equips transportation professionals, planners, and researchers with the ability to answer critical questions across a range of study types, such as:
- Identifying travel demand corridors: Detecting high-volume routes and emerging travel regions to guide infrastructure investment.
- Supporting land use and zoning decisions: Aligning development strategies with actual mobility behaviour.
- Measuring route choice dynamics: Observing how construction, tourism surges, or special events shift travel flows.
- Evaluating demand management strategies: Assessing how policies, pricing, or modal shifts influence trip distribution.
Key Components and Workflow
The OD module streamlines trip analysis through a guided workflow, ensuring flexibility while keeping studies easy to set up. Here is an overview of each step you will move through:
- Study type selection: Choose from three study types: Region-based OD, Selected Link/Region OD, and Flow Links OD, to align the analysis with your objectives.
- Region/link selection: Select the geographic boundary for your study, from specific segments to individual cities to entire regions.
- Trip condition selection: Filter by when trips start, end, or both, allowing targeted analysis of specific time periods.
- Vehicle type selection: Specify passenger vehicles, commercial fleets, or both, depending on the scope of your study.
- Date range and time set selection: Define precise ranges to capture short-term events or long-term patterns.
- Study confirmation: Review your study parameters, including expected sample size and credit usage, before finalizing.
- Result delivery: Access comprehensive result pages with clear summaries, visualizations, and data exports for deeper analysis.
Data Sources
At its core, the OD module is powered by high-resolution GPS probe data. This data is collected from the following sources:
- Connected GPS devices
- Embedded vehicle telematics systems
- GPS-enabled mobile phones
This data is continuously archived, creating a robust historical traffic database. The result is a rich, scalable foundation for Origin-Destination studies that combines real-time insights with long-term context, making the OD Module a central component of iNode's advanced traffic data analytics platform.
Data Availability and Updates
Traffic Stats data is continuously updated as it moves through iNode’s processing pipeline, where it is cleaned, aggregated, and validated to ensure consistent, reliable results. Data is typically available with a one-day lag, meaning studies can be submitted for as recent as yesterday or today; however, to achieve optimal sample sizes and the highest data quality, we recommend waiting up to 72 hours before submitting a study, as some GPS data providers deliver data with delays beyond 24 hours.