Identifying Urban Structure Based on Transit-Oriented Development

Yingqun Zhang, Rui Song, Rob van Nes, Shiwei He and Weichuan Yin
Additional contact information
Yingqun Zhang: Key Laboratory of Transport Industry of Big Data Application Technologies for Comprehensive Transport, Ministry of Transport, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China
Rui Song: Key Laboratory of Transport Industry of Big Data Application Technologies for Comprehensive Transport, Ministry of Transport, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China
Rob van Nes: Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands
Shiwei He: Key Laboratory of Transport Industry of Big Data Application Technologies for Comprehensive Transport, Ministry of Transport, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China
Weichuan Yin: One Belt-One Road Strategy Institute, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 24, 1-21

Abstract: The fast development of urbanization has led to imbalances in cities, causing congestion, pollution, and urban sprawl. In response to the growing concern over the distribution of demand and supply, a more coordinated urban structure is addressed in comprehensive planning processes. In this study, we attempt to identify urban structure using a Network–Activity–Human model under the Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) concept, since TOD is usually regarded as an urban spatial planning tool. In order to explore the strengths and weaknesses of the urban structure, we define the TOD index and unbalance degree and then classify the urban areas accordingly. We take the city of Beijing as a case study and identify nine urban types. The results show a hierarchical urban structure: the city center covers most of the hotspots which display higher imbalances, the surroundings of the city center are less developed, and the city edges show higher potentials in both exploitation and transportation development. Moreover, we discuss the extent to which the spatial scale influences the unbalance degree and apply a sensitivity analysis based on the goals of different stakeholders. This methodology could be utilized at any study scale and in any situation, and the results could offer suggestions for more accurate urban planning, strengthening the relationship between TOD and spatial organization.

Keywords: TOD; imbalance; urban structure; transportation network; activity; human (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/24/7241/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/24/7241/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:24:p:7241-:d:298827

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().