Towards a Comprehensive Measure of the Ambient Population

Traditional estimates of the population focus on residential populations and capture a single point in time. These estimates fail to account for the frequent fluctuations in human mobility, which significantly impacts the size and demographic composition of small area populations. Despite the impact and utility of estimates of the ambient population, they are not currently published as part of official population statistics. Estimates of the ambient population are a valuable asset in policymaking and can be utilised to inform emergency planning, retail analysis, epidemiological models, and crime analysis. In this thesis, estimates of the ambient population are produced and applied to a study of the spatial distribution of crime rates.

The thesis begins by identifying and critiquing data sources which may be useful for building estimates of the ambient population. This provides a framework of reference for researchers within urban analytics and other areas in which an accurate measurement of the ambient population is required. A method of statistical modelling is utilised in conjunction with novel data to produce daytime and night-time estimates of the ambient population in an urban area. These estimates are then employed to demonstrate any influence that the choice of denominator has on the spatial distribution of crime. This is the first time that a study of crime has utilised a comprehensive measure of the ambient population, drawing on high-resolution footfall counts and other novel sources of data.