Telia: Mobility increased between cities, rural areas at start of May

Last weekend more people moved between the cities and rural areas, data from a mobility analysis conducted by telecom operator Telia shows.
Last weekend was a three-day weekend and it seems people took the opportunity to visit their homes in the countryside.
Erki Pogoretski, head of customer and business analytics at Telia Eesti, said while the mobility of the population is far from being comparable to that under normal circumstances, a general increase in movement was observed between May 1 and 3.
Pogoretski said: "In particular, more movement was registered between cities and their outskirts, which gives reason to conclude that the relatively warm weather and long weekend prompted people to get out of the city and go to their second and summer homes."
A comparison of data from May 2 and April 4 - both Saturdays - shows a 15-percent total increase in mobility month on month.
The biggest increase - over 60 percent - was seen between the northeastern towns of Narva and Narva-Jõesuu, a beach town.
Movement between the city of Tartu and Tartu municipality as well as that between the town of Pärnu and the Tori municipality grew 30 percent.
Mobility between the city of Tallinn and the municipality of Viimsi, however, remained under 20 percent.
A breakdown of data from the last week of April and first week of May by county shows that the increase in mobility was sharpest in southern Estonia, particularly in Põlva, Võru and Valga counties. Mobility remained relatively unchanged in Ida-Viru County and decreased in other counties.
The general mobility of people was approximately 30 percent lower than before the crisis, according to data by Telia.
Telia's Crowd Insights platform, which was used for analyzing anonymous mobile network-based aggregate mobility patterns and changes, does not reveal any individual person's location or movement and is compliant with requirements laid down in the Personal Data Protection Act, the mobile operator said.
Telia is cooperating during the emergency situation with the government and Statistics Estonia by relaying analyses conducted on the basis of the latest aggregated mobility data.
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Editor: Helen Wright