IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jotrge/v91y2021ics0966692320310061.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Near “real-time” estimation of excess commuting from open-source data: Evidence from China's megacities

Author

Listed:
  • Zhang, Hong
  • Xu, Shan
  • Liu, Xuan
  • Liu, Chengliang

Abstract

Urban commuting has continuously fascinated scholars and decision-makers. As few people live and work in the same place, there is always excess commuting (i.e., the non-optimal or surplus work travel occurring in cities because people do not minimize their journeys to work for most residents). Traditional commuting data sources (e.g., questionnaires and census surveys) are challenged by small samples, high cost, and low spatiotemporal resolution. In contrast, the big social-sensing data (e.g., smart card and mobile phone data) only consider one or two traffic mode of a route, which is not consistent with the real-life condition. This article proposes a framework for modeling excess commuting based on open-source data of the ten most populous megacities in China. We downloaded residential points of interest (POIs) from Lianjia Real Estate website and obtained workplace POIs from China's AMAP, which is widespread used as Google map. The stratified sampling approach was employed to derive commuting pairs. Both commuting distance and time were obtained by the shortest path under public transportation from AMAP. Then, the linear programming method was employed to calculate the theoretical minimum commuting time and distance of each city. We analyzed the statistical property and spatial distributions of excess commuting and found that (1) commuting distances and time (ranging from 9.1 to18.1 km and from 44.8 to 74.3 minutes) of all ten megacities follow a left-skewed normal distribution; (2) in terms of commute cost, all cities show universal core-periphery patterns where the spatial heterogeneity of the commuting time is more significant than that of distance; (3) for each city, the excess commuting measured by time (i.e. from 0.61 to 0.79) is lower than that measured by distance (i.e. 0.68 to 0.89); and (4) the role of mixing land use, waterbody distribution, and centripetal urbanization on urban commuting distance and time is significant.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhang, Hong & Xu, Shan & Liu, Xuan & Liu, Chengliang, 2021. "Near “real-time” estimation of excess commuting from open-source data: Evidence from China's megacities," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jotrge:v:91:y:2021:i:c:s0966692320310061
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2020.102929
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0966692320310061
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2020.102929?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. O’Kelly, Morton E. & Niedzielski, Michael A., 2008. "Efficient spatial interaction: attainable reductions in metropolitan average trip length," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 16(5), pages 313-323.
    2. Dennis van Soest & Miles R. Tight & Christopher D. F. Rogers, 2020. "Exploring the distances people walk to access public transport," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(2), pages 160-182, March.
    3. Sean Coogan & Zhixian Sui & David Raubenheimer, 2018. "Gluttony and guilt: monthly trends in internet search query data are comparable with national-level energy intake and dieting behavior," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 4(1), pages 1-9, December.
    4. Kang‐Rae Ma & David Banister, 2006. "Excess Commuting: A Critical Review," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(6), pages 749-767, May.
    5. Jianxi Feng & Martin Dijst & Bart Wissink & Jan Prillwitz, 2014. "Understanding Mode Choice in the Chinese Context: The Case of Nanjing Metropolitan Area," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 105(3), pages 315-330, July.
    6. Yu Liu & Xi Liu & Song Gao & Li Gong & Chaogui Kang & Ye Zhi & Guanghua Chi & Li Shi, 2015. "Social Sensing: A New Approach to Understanding Our Socioeconomic Environments," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 105(3), pages 512-530, May.
    7. Murphy, Enda, 2009. "Excess commuting and modal choice," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 43(8), pages 735-743, October.
    8. Jie Huang & David Levinson & Jiaoe Wang & Zi-jia Wang, 2018. "Tracking job and housing dynamics with smartcard data," Working Papers 2018-01, University of Minnesota: Nexus Research Group.
    9. Hu, Yujie & Wang, Fahui, 2015. "Decomposing excess commuting: a Monte Carlo simulation approach," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 43-52.
    10. Kiron Chatterjee & Samuel Chng & Ben Clark & Adrian Davis & Jonas De Vos & Dick Ettema & Susan Handy & Adam Martin & Louise Reardon, 2020. "Commuting and wellbeing: a critical overview of the literature with implications for policy and future research," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(1), pages 5-34, January.
    11. Zhou, Jiangping & Murphy, Enda & Long, Ying, 2014. "Commuting efficiency in the Beijing metropolitan area: an exploration combining smartcard and travel survey data," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 175-183.
    12. Yujie Hu & Fahui Wang, 2016. "Temporal Trends of Intraurban Commuting in Baton Rouge, 1990–2010," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 106(2), pages 470-479, March.
    13. Niedzielski, Michael A. & Horner, Mark W. & Xiao, Ningchuan, 2013. "Analyzing scale independence in jobs-housing and commute efficiency metrics," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 129-143.
    14. White, Michelle J, 1988. "Urban Commuting Journeys Are Not "Wasteful."," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(5), pages 1097-1110, October.
    15. Hong Zhang & Yanyu Chen & Peichao Gao & Zhiwei Wu, 2020. "Mapping the changing Internet attention to the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 in China," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(4), pages 691-694, June.
    16. Bwire, Hannibal & Zengo, Emil, 2020. "Comparison of efficiency between public and private transport modes using excess commuting: An experience in Dar es Salaam," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    17. Cropper, Maureen L. & Gordon, Patrice L., 1991. "Wasteful commuting: A re-examination," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 2-13, January.
    18. repec:nas:journl:v:115:y:2018:p:12710-12715 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. David Levinson, 1998. "Accessibility and the Journey to Work," Working Papers 199802, University of Minnesota: Nexus Research Group.
    20. Liu, Erjian & Yan, Xiaoyong, 2019. "New parameter-free mobility model: Opportunity priority selection model," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 526(C).
    21. Liu, Chengliang & Duan, Dezhong, 2020. "Spatial inequality of bus transit dependence on urban streets and its relationships with socioeconomic intensities: A tale of two megacities in China," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    22. Frost, Martin & Linneker, Brian & Spence, Nigel, 1998. "Excess or wasteful commuting in a selection of British cities," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 32(7), pages 529-538, September.
    23. Crane, Randall, 1996. "The Influence of Uncertain Job Location on Urban Form and the Journey to Work," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 342-356, May.
    24. He, Mingwei & Zhao, Shengchuan & He, Min, 2016. "Tolerance threshold of commuting time: Evidence from Kunming, China," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 1-7.
    25. Alan T. Murray & Rex Davis, 2001. "Equity in Regional Service Provision," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(4), pages 557-600, November.
    26. Jos van Ommeren & Piet Rietveld & Peter Nijkamp & Jos van Ommeren & Piet Rietveld & Peter Nijkamp, 2004. "Job Moving, Residential Moving, and Commuting: A Search Perspective," Chapters, in: Location, Travel and Information Technology, chapter 11, pages 223-246, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    27. Kanaroglou, Pavlos S. & Higgins, Christopher D. & Chowdhury, Tufayel A., 2015. "Excess commuting: a critical review and comparative analysis of concepts, indices, and policy implications," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 13-23.
    28. White, M.J., 1988. "Urban Commuting Journeys Are Not Wasteful," Papers 88-10, Michigan - Center for Research on Economic & Social Theory.
    29. Kobe Boussauw & Tijs Neutens & Frank Witlox, 2011. "Minimum commuting distance as a spatial characteristic in a non‐monocentric urban system: The case of Flanders," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 90(1), pages 47-65, March.
    30. David Merriman & Toru Ohkawara & Tsutomu Suzuki, 1995. "Excess Commuting in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area: Measurement and Policy Simulations," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 32(1), pages 69-85, February.
    31. Wheaton, William C., 2004. "Commuting, congestion, and employment dispersal in cities with mixed land use," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 417-438, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhentao Li & Tianzi Li, 2022. "How Does City Size Affect the Cost of Household Travel? Evidence from an Urban Household Survey in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(11), pages 1-20, June.
    2. Chen, Ruoyu & Zhang, Min & Zhou, Jiangping, 2023. "Jobs-housing relationships before and amid COVID-19: An excess-commuting approach," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    3. Ling, Changlong & Niu, Xinyi & Yang, Jiawen & Zhou, Jiangping & Yang, Tianren, 2024. "Unravelling heterogeneity and dynamics of commuting efficiency: Industry-level insights into evolving efficiency gaps based on a disaggregated excess-commuting framework," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Saadi, Ismaïl & Boussauw, Kobe & Teller, Jacques & Cools, Mario, 2016. "Trends in regional jobs-housing proximity based on the minimum commute: The case of Belgium," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 171-183.
    2. Chen, Ruoyu & Zhang, Min & Zhou, Jiangping, 2023. "Jobs-housing relationships before and amid COVID-19: An excess-commuting approach," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    3. Zhou, Jiangping & Murphy, Enda, 2019. "Day-to-day variation in excess commuting: An exploratory study of Brisbane, Australia," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 223-232.
    4. Cheng, Lin & Chen, Chen & Xiu, Chunliang, 2017. "Excess kindergarten travel in Changchun, Northeast China: A measure of residence-kindergarten spatial mismatch," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 208-216.
    5. Jiangping Zhou & Enda Murphy & Jonathan Corcoran, 2020. "Integrating road carrying capacity and traffic congestion into the excess commuting framework: The case of Los Angeles," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 47(1), pages 119-137, January.
    6. Jiangping, Zhou & Chun, Zhang & Xiaojian, Chen & Wei, Huang & Peng, Yu, 2014. "Has the legacy of Danwei persisted in transformations? the jobs-housing balance and commuting efficiency in Xi’an," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 64-76.
    7. Jiangping Zhou & Ying Long, 2016. "Losers and Pareto optimality in optimising commuting patterns," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(12), pages 2511-2529, September.
    8. Qin, Ping & Wang, Lanlan, 2019. "Job opportunities, institutions, and the jobs-housing spatial relationship: Case study of Beijing," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 331-339.
    9. Bwire, Hannibal & Zengo, Emil, 2020. "Comparison of efficiency between public and private transport modes using excess commuting: An experience in Dar es Salaam," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    10. Enda Murphy & James E. Killen, 2011. "Commuting Economy," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(6), pages 1255-1272, May.
    11. Niedzielski, Michael A. & Horner, Mark W. & Xiao, Ningchuan, 2013. "Analyzing scale independence in jobs-housing and commute efficiency metrics," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 129-143.
    12. Tufayel A. Chowdhury & Darren M. Scott & Pavlos S. Kanaroglou, 2013. "Urban Form and Commuting Efficiency: A Comparative Analysis across Time and Space," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(1), pages 191-207, January.
    13. Schleith, Daniel & Widener, Michael & Kim, Changjoo, 2016. "An examination of the jobs-housing balance of different categories of workers across 26 metropolitan regions," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 145-160.
    14. Vincent Viguié, 2015. "Cross-commuting and housing prices in a polycentric modeling of cities," Policy Papers 2015.03, FAERE - French Association of Environmental and Resource Economists.
    15. Korsu, Emre & Le Néchet, Florent, 2017. "Would fewer people drive to work in a city without excess commuting? Explorations in the Paris metropolitan area," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 259-274.
    16. Kim, Kyusik & Horner, Mark W., 2021. "Examining the impacts of the Great Recession on the commuting dynamics and jobs-housing balance of public and private sector workers," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    17. Kanaroglou, Pavlos S. & Higgins, Christopher D. & Chowdhury, Tufayel A., 2015. "Excess commuting: a critical review and comparative analysis of concepts, indices, and policy implications," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 13-23.
    18. Ling, Changlong & Niu, Xinyi & Yang, Jiawen & Zhou, Jiangping & Yang, Tianren, 2024. "Unravelling heterogeneity and dynamics of commuting efficiency: Industry-level insights into evolving efficiency gaps based on a disaggregated excess-commuting framework," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    19. Ta, Na & Zhao, Ying & Chai, Yanwei, 2016. "Built environment, peak hours and route choice efficiency: An investigation of commuting efficiency using GPS data," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 161-170.
    20. Myung-Jin Jun & Simon Choi & Frank Wen & Ki-Hyun Kwon, 2018. "Effects of urban spatial structure on level of excess commutes: A comparison between Seoul and Los Angeles," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(1), pages 195-211, January.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jotrge:v:91:y:2021:i:c:s0966692320310061. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-transport-geography .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.