This report describes the results of a pilot project carried out by 5 national statistical institutes. The group explored how data collection for European cities and functional urban areas can be improved. In particular, opportunities for use of Labour Force Survey (LFS) data and of big data from aggregated mobile phone data have been examined.
The project has identified the opportunities and limitations of the use of LFS data, and reports on possible future opportunities for enhancement of LFS data use. Using mobile phone data can result in promising innovative ways of studying spatio-temporal differences in population distribution. However, access to the data often remains problematic and further work towards harmonised methodologies is necessary.