Commuter networks and community detection: a method for planning sub regional areas

A major issue for policy makers and planners is the definition of “ideal” regional partitions, i.e. the delimitation of sub-regional domains showing a sufficient level of homogeneity with respect to some specific territorial features. In this paper, we compare some intermediate body partitions of Sardinia, Italy, with patterns that emerge from the workers and students’ commuting. We apply grouping methodologies based on the characterization of Sardinian commuting system as a complex weighted network. We adopt an algorithm based on the maximization of the weighted modularity of this network and detect productive basins composed by municipalities with degree of cohesiveness in terms of commuters’ flows. The results of this study lead us to conclude that the recently instituded provinces in Sardinia have been designed -even unconsciously- as labour basins of municipalities with similar commuting behaviour.