Systems, apparatus, and methods are disclosed for accurately identifying a moving thing motion activity (MTMA) associated with a mobile thing (MT) using sensor data from one or more sensors associated with a wireless communication device (WCD) transported by the MT so as to enable or initiate a further one or more activity based actions. One such method, among others, comprises: (a) receiving first and second data from one or more sensors (e.g., accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, etc.) associated with a wireless communication device (WCD) transported by a mobile thing (MT), the first and second data indicative of movement of the WCD; (b) determining reference data that defines a reference framework from the first data; (c) normalizing the second data with the reference data so that the second data can be analyzed in the reference framework; and (d) identifying an MTMA associated with the MT based upon the normalized second data.