The Origins & Destinations feature in Metroview helps identify mobility patterns across your Area of Interest (AOI). It allows you to explore where trips begin and end, and to examine the relationships between different parts of your region.
Origins
After navigating to the Origins & Destinations view on the Map tab, the map will load with an orange hexagonal overlay. Origins & Destinations data in Metroview uses the H3 grid system, an open-source geospatial indexing framework that divides the world into hexagonal cells.
At broader zoom levels, larger hexagons appear as a visual indicator of available data. As you zoom in, smaller hexagons become visible at a fixed spatial scale. These hexagons use H3 resolution 8, with each hex covering approximately 0.74 square kilometers (0.28 square miles). The shade of each hexagon represents the number of trips originating from that area.
You can refine the map using filters in the lower-left corner of the screen, including:
Commute or Leisure trips
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Time of day
Morning (5am–10am)
Midday (10am–3pm)
Evening (3pm–8pm)
Overnight (8pm–5am)
Weekdays or Weekends
Specific months or years
Using filters together allows you to isolate specific patterns, such as weekday morning commute origins for a given year.
Clicking on an origin hexagon opens a summary panel on the right showing the top destinations associated with that origin. The selected origin is outlined in orange, while associated destinations are shown in purple. Summary details include the average (mean) trip duration and distance.
Selecting one of the associated destination hexagons updates the panel with additional details about those trips, including time of day, days of the week, and weeks of the year. The selected origin remains highlighted in orange, and the selected destination is shown in purple.
To return to the list of associated destinations, click the X next to the destination name in the right-side panel. Clicking the X again will return the map to the origins view, allowing you to select a new origin and repeat the process.
Destinations
You can perform the same analysis from the opposite perspective by switching the Hex Type from Origins to Destinations. In this view, the map displays the most common destinations within your AOI. Darker purple hexagons indicate a higher volume of trips ending in that location.
Filters in the lower-left corner apply in the same way as in the Origins view.
Clicking on a destination hexagon generates a list of top origins in the right-side panel. This view is often useful for understanding where trips are coming from when traveling to a central area, such as a business district. In this state, the selected destination is outlined in purple and associated origins are shown in orange.
Selecting one of the associated origin hexagons updates the panel with additional trip details, including time of day, days of the week, and weeks of the year. The selected destination remains highlighted in purple, and the selected origin appears in orange.
You can return to the previous views by clicking the X button in the right-side panel to step back through the selection.
The data provided in the Origins & Destinations feature follows the same aggregation and privacy standards as other Strava Metro tools.
Exporting Origins & Destinations data
If you’d like to take this analysis outside of Metroview, you can export Origins & Destinations data for use in GIS or other analytical tools. Exports include aggregated counts for each hexagon and time period based on your selected filters.
For step-by-step instructions, see Origins & Destinations Data Export and Download.