  Human mobility patterns deeply affect the dynamics of many social systems. In
this paper, we empirically analyze the real-world human movements based GPS
records, and observe rich scaling properties in the temporal-spatial patterns
as well as an abnormal transition in the speed-displacement patterns. We notice
that the displacements at the population level show significant positive
correlation, indicating a cascade-like nature in human movements. Furthermore,
our analysis at the individual level finds that the displacement distributions
of users with strong correlation of displacements are closer to power laws,
implying a relationship between the positive correlation of the series of
displacements and the form of an individual's displacement distribution. These
findings from our empirical analysis show a factor directly relevant to the
origin of the scaling properties in human mobility.
