Switching exploration modes in human mobility

Recent advances in human mobility research have revealed consistent pairwise characteristics in movement behavior, yet existing mobility models often overlook the spatial and topological structure of mobility networks. By analyzing millions of devices' anonymized cell phone trajectories, we uncover a distinct modular organization within these networks, demonstrating that movements within spatial modules differ significantly from those between modules. This finding challenges the conventional assumption of uniform mobility dynamics and underscores the influence of heterogeneous environments on human movement. Inspired by switching behaviors in animal movement patterns, we introduce a novel "switch mechanism" to differentiate movement modes, allowing our model to accurately reproduce both the modular structures of trajectory networks and spatial mobility patterns. Our results provide new insights into the dynamics of human mobility and its impact on network formation, with broad applications in traffic prediction, disease transmission modeling, and urban planning. Beyond advancing the theoretical and practical understanding of mobility networks, this work opens new avenues for understanding societal dynamics at large.