Abstract:A theoretical analysis was conducted on the intrinsic bond between multi-point response caused by a same single vibration in phase sensitive optical time domain reflectometer. Temporal similarity of signals collected from adja-cent sample locations were investigated. Referring to correlation coefficient as well as the relative energy level, a method of extracting disturbed position in φ-OTDR based on signal relevance evaluation is proposed to perform fast screening of massive φ-OTDR raw data to pinpoint those signals with significance . As proof of concept, a manual excavation experiment was conducted along an oil pipeline, where on-site data was analyzed. The results showed that the proposed method can accurately screen out real vibration signals and filter out pure noise so that compu-tation resources could be allocated with better rationality.