Abstract
Road traffic congestion is a common problem in most large cities, and exploring the root causes is essential to alleviate traffic congestion. Travel behavior is closely related to the built environment, and affects road travel speed. This paper investigated the direct effect of built environment on the average travel speed of road traffic. Taxi trajectories were divided into 30 min time slot (48 time slots throughout the day) and matched to the road network to obtain the average travel speed of road segments. The Points of Interest (POIs) in the buffer zone on both sides of the road segment were used to calculate the built environment indicators corresponding to the road segment, and then a spatial panel data model was proposed to assess the influence of the built environment adjacent to the road segment on the average travel speed of the road segment. The results demonstrated that the bus stop density, healthcare service density, sports and leisure service density, and parking entrance and exit density are the key factors that positively affect the average road travel speed. The residential community density and business building density are the key factors that negatively affect the average travel speed. Built environments have spatial correlation and spatial heterogeneity in their influence on the average travel speed of road segments. Findings of this study may provide useful insights for understanding the correlation between road travel speed and built environment, which would have important implications for urban planning and governance, traffic demand forecasting and traffic system optimization.
Highlights
Urban roads generally exist in a particular urban built environment with a constant flow of traffic, which has a direct or indirect continuous impact on the performance of the roads [1]
Pan et al constructed a geographically weighted regression (GWR) model to analyze the influence of built environment on traffic state index (TSI) of traffic analysis zone (TAZ), and the results showed that the spatial variation of the built environment influence on traffic performance is large, and the public, commercial and residential Points of Interest (POIs), the number of bus routes, bus stops, the number of lanes, and average traffic flow significantly influence the traffic analysis zones’ traffic performance [1]
Zhang et al constructed a spatial autoregressive moving average (SARMA) model based on taxi trajectory data to study the influence of built environment on road traffic congestion, and the results showed that the long-time congested road segments are mainly concentrated in the city center, and road grades, bus stops, commercial sites, ramps, etc. are highly correlated with traffic congestion [8]
Summary
Urban roads generally exist in a particular urban built environment with a constant flow of traffic, which has a direct or indirect continuous impact on the performance of the roads [1]. Urban road grade distribution has the highest proportion of low- and medium-grade roads, which bear diverse functions such as traffic, connection and living services, and their connection with the built environment is relatively close [2]. Urban built environment is composed of various buildings and places that have been artificially constructed and modified, and is a combination of land use patterns, transportation systems, and a series of elements related to urban design that can influence the behavior of residents’ activities [3]. The built environment differs from the natural environment in that it is a product of human civilization, providing a spatial, temporal, and social context for human activity, and is a combination of elements related to land use, urban design, and transportation systems. Many studies have used POI to calculate built environment indicators [5]
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