A Tale of Two Stations
In this project, we utilize urban big data to analyze the drastically different metro ridership in two stations, Zaoying and Jiangtai, both located at Line 14 in Beijing (Fig. 1). This is a comprehensive and multi-dimensional analysis of urban transportation, which demonstrates the necessity of integrating multi-source and heterogeneous data when analyzing complex urban problems. This study also highlights the value of fine-granular data such as cell phone data and bike sharing data in revealing individual activities and behaviors of commuters, and identifying key bottlenecks and inefficiencies in the transportation system.
Fig. 1. Left: Passenger flow (inflow + outflow) heat map in Beijing at 8:00. Right: Location of the two stations
Problem Identification
In Figs. 2 & 3, we show and compare some basic characteristics of the two stations, as well as their metro ridership and modal (metro, taxi, bus) share within 1-km buffer. The passenger flow at Jiangtai far exceeds that of Zaoying, by a multiplicative factor of 7 throughout the day and 9.76 during morning peak (7:00-9:00). Such a difference is disproportional to the population near these stations, which differs by a factor of 2 (Fig. 2) -- Why?
Furthermore, Fig 3 shows much lower share of taxi trips in Jiangtai (5%) compared to Zaoying (17%), suggesting a lower utilization of public transportation (metro, bus) in Zaoying -- What happened?
Fig. 2. Basic characteristics concerning the two stations. Point of interest (POI), land use type, and population are calculated for the areas within 1-km radius from the stations (called buffer).
Fig. 3. Left: Comparison of metro passenger flows (left) and modal share (right) at Zaoying and Jiangtai areas.
Multi-Dimensional Analysis
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Conclusions
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Compared to Jiangtai, the Zaoying area has a much higher proportion of senior population, who make less frequent commute trips.
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Zaoying station has much lower accessibility from the bus transit network than Jiangtai.
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Most commuters to (from) Zaoying travel from (to) areas within close proximity (1km) from Zaoying, while those associated with Jiangtai are distributed much further away (3km).
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Mobility by metro is low for commuters to (from) Zaoying (e.g. Sanyuanqiao, Liangmaqiao, Tuanjiehu are close to Zaoying with 10min by taxi, but take up to 30 min by metro). This also explains the high share of taxi trips near Zaoying.
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The low accessibility of Zaoying from nearby areas is mitigated by the shared bike services. The last-mile connection offered by shared bikes contributed to the 80% increase of metro ridership of Zaoying after introduction of the shared bike scheme.
Content displayed on this page was cited from the following reference:
Ma L, Chen, Q, Han, K, Gao, Y, Li, D, 2018. A tale of two stations: Analyzing metro ridership with big data. Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting. Washington DC, Jan 2018.