Abstract
The application of location-aware devices and location-based services enables big data to provide a convenient and efficient way to study the dynamics of urban population distribution. Based on the Baidu heat map data, the spatial-temporal population aggregation in the main urban areas of Chengdu City was explored in the context of the Spring Festival. The results suggested that population aggregation showed regular fluctuation within a day, consistent with the commuting activities. Also, population mobility showed difference before, during and after the festival; population density during the holiday was significantly lower than that on the other two working days, meanwhile the heat value on the working day before the festival was slightly higher than that after the festival. The conclusion showed that the Spring Festival affected the population distribution density. Chinese government’s emergent measures taken to suppress the nationwide spread of COVID_19 at early 2020 also had great influence on the low population aggregation during and after the Spring Festival, indicating the effectiveness of emergency control of human interactions. Better understanding of Spatial-temporal dynamics of population aggregation during the Spring Festival is of great value for optimizing the city expansion and structure planning.
Highlights
With the increasing urbanization and modernization in the rapid growth of cities, urban planners are confronted with challenges of heavily congested traffic, mounting pollution and so on
Baidu Heat Map, a big data visualization product launched by Baidu Inc., China’s leading Internet search company, in 2011, describes mobile phone users’ information of geographical coordinate in the special form of highlighting when they get access to any of Baidu products, becoming a new tool to study the mobility of urban population
The Baidu heat map collects the spatial location data of mobile phone users, reflecting the density degree of urban population by visualizing the heat value with colors which move from yellow to orange and to red as the value increases, signaling the population concentration getting hotter in certain areas
Summary
With the increasing urbanization and modernization in the rapid growth of cities, urban planners are confronted with challenges of heavily congested traffic, mounting pollution and so on. Analyzing the spatial-temporal population distribution revealed by the Baidu heat maps, the flow patterns of residents’ activity in different parts of a city can be and clearly identified. Based on the real-time population spatial distribution data of Baidu map, this study attempts to analyze the spatial-temporal population aggregation in the main urban areas of Chengdu City, so as to provide the basis for the optimization of Chengdu stock space. By monitoring the patterns of Chengdu residents’ lifebeat and detecting any anomalies like overcrowding surroundings in case of emergencies, the typical mobility of people between different areas over time could be potentially modeled, revealing the current deficiency of spatial structure, population distribution and public facility allocation, and providing potential suggestions for urban planners. This paper set the time before (January 21), during (January 28) and after (February 6) the Spring Festival, aiming to elucidate the impact of the Spring Festival on the population dynamic distribution for the insight into urban planning and construction
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