History

Positium has been at the forefront of location data analytics since its inception. Here's a journey through our milestones and achievements.
In 2002, when Estonia hosted the Eurovision Song Contest that brought thousands of spectators to our capital, an idea sparked. Instead of surveys, there had to be a more efficient and accurate way to analyse human mobility patterns and tourist flows, thought human geographer Prof. Rein Ahas, urban planner Heikki Kalle and architect Ülar Mark.

In the course of exploring this idea it so happened that, in 2003, they founded Positium as a spin-off from the University of Tartu. Our roots in social sciences, human geography, economy, tourism, and GIS provided a strong foundation for our methodological research.
First articles about the social positioning method (SPM) and mobile positioning data (MPD) were published by the researchers at the University of Tartu together with Positium – a game changer in future human geography and social science research.
Architects from UrbanMark, researchers from the University of Tartu and the MPD experts of Positium built an exhibition called "JointSpace: Location aware urban space and poetry" for the Venice Architecture biennale. They received such great feedback that Positium decided to develop these ideas into real products.
Positium's first office was established at 9 Õpetaja Street in Tartu, Estonia.
Anchor point model – a model for detecting human activity spaces from MPD was created and the idea was introduced in a fundamental article "Modelling Home and Work Locations of Populations Using Passive Mobile Positioning Data".

Positium Barometer – the first MPD-based interactive tourism statistics system was developed. It was made available to all municipalities in Estonia. The Barometer established a basis for Positium's own processing software – Positium Data Mediator (PDM).
In 2009, we completed our first major project and Estonia became the first country in the world to use MPD for official tourism statistics as the result of fruitful cooperation between the central bank of Estonia and Positium. The project is still ongoing today.
Positium carried out a regional planning study together with the University of Tartu, forming the basis for many regional planning decisions for years to come.
Positium became a founding member of the Estonian Smart City Cluster initiative, designed to create an innovative environment in cities to boost the competitive ability of companies by bringing together businesses, citizens, public authorities, R&D institutes and structures that support innovation.
Together with Eurostat, Positium conducted the Feasibility Study on the Use of Mobile Positioning Data for Tourism Statistics. It was the first of its kind, involving research from different countries about accessing, using and evaluating MPD. The paper paved the way for many future discussions about MPD.
The United Nations Global Working Group on Big Data for Official Statistics was launched with Positium's participation and we started working towards bringing MPD to statistical offices around the whole world.
Our methodology was recognised by the United Nations, and we became a member of the UN Committee of Experts on Big Data and Data Science’s Task Team on Mobile Phone Data. This recognition cemented our place as leaders in the field.
Positium expanded its services globally, working with clients in multiple countries. The Indonesian cross-border tourism analytics project was started, making Indonesia the second producer of official statistics based on mobile positioning data. We provided tourism statistics for Indonesia from 2018 until 2021, measuring an additional 1 million annual visitor arrivals.

In 2018, Positium was awarded the title of the Best Spin-Off Company of University of Tartu.
We also participated in developing a data-driven bus route network solution and the creation of a network of city bikes in Tartu and received the Act of the Year Award for it in the following year.
We moved our office to the city centre of Tartu. To this day, we cannot get enough of our views overlooking the river.
By 2020, we had completed over 300 projects, analysed data from 15+ countries, and collaborated with major organisations like the UN, OECD, and GSMA. That year, we also completed one of our most important GIS projects to date – the spatial database integrations of the eCensus in the Sultanate of Oman.
2021 saw the start of our cooperation with Lithuania Travel, as we began calculating travel statistics for them to be able to monitor tourist flows in Lithuania. We also created an online dashboard to better visualise the data.
In the framework of the Eurostat project "Development, implementation and demonstration of a reference processing pipeline for the future production of official statistics based on Multiple Mobile Network Operator data (TSS multi-MNO)",Positium is part of a consortium working for Eurostat with the aim of developing the initial version of a fully open methodological standard for the processing of mobile phone data for official statistics, based on a selection of reference use-cases.
Positium continues to innovate and expand, driven by our mission to improve the quality of life through data-driven decisions. We remain committed to providing high-quality methods and tools for extracting trustworthy knowledge from mobile positioning data. With two decades of experience under its belt, Positium has firmly established itself as a leader in the industry, continuing to inspire and innovate.


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For detailed insights into our projects and methodologies, visit our Resources Page. There, you can download case studies, save images, and find links to relevant studies and articles.