Spatiotemporal distributions of population in Seoul: joint influence of ridership and accessibility of the subway system

Abstract

Moving along with daily life, urban residents and commuters create characteristic spatiotemporal patterns which vary extensively with the time of day. These patterns are formed via traffic flows: accordingly, understanding the impact of transportation system is essential for urban planners to evaluate expected urban activities. To explore them, we examine specifically population distributions in Seoul City by analyzing hourly population data based on mobile phone location records in combination with a couple of indicators of the Seoul Subway system. Through clustering and principal component analyses, we first demonstrate that the spatial distribution of the population is categorized according to the time of day, i.e., night, daytime, and evening, variations across which reflect the morphology of land use. We then examine the influence of the subway system on the population, employing ridership and accessibility as indicators. Our linear regression analysis shows that both are associated with the daytime and the evening populations, which implies that only commercial activities are substantially coupled to the subway system. Further, we find that the distinctive difference of night population is encoded in the probability distributions; this is elucidated by means of a multiplicative growth model for the morphological evolution of Seoul, revealing decentralization of residential areas and centralization of commercial areas. This study sheds light on the interplay of a public transportation system and land use, which is of relevance to planners and policymakers wishing to develop neighborhoods in support of sustainable modes.

Efficiency in the evolution of metro networks

“…Other interesting data related to the topology, such as traffic flow, population distribution, and land use, which show a strong relationship with metro networks 36 , may enrich our future study. For instance, the influence of the subway system on the population was revealed in a recent study by employing ridership and efficiency as indicators and found that only commercial activities are substantially coupled to the subway system, which sheds light on the interplay of the metro network and land use 37 . Second, as a crucial component of the public transportation systems, the metro network is one layer of the multimode network and co-evolving with other transportation modes.…”

Metro systems and urban development: Impacts and implications

“…Brazil, Canada, China, India, Iran, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, UK and US). Many studies applied statistical analyses (Ahmad et al, 2016;Gendron-Carrier et al, 2020;Gonzalez-Navarro and Turner, 2018;Huang et al, 2017;King, 2011;Lee et al, 2021;Levinson, 2008;Li and Zhao, 2017;Lin and Yang, 2019;Peng et al, 2019;da Silva et al, 2012;Wu and Hong 2017;Zhu and Diao, 2016), particularly the difference-in-differences technique (Gu et al, 2021;Huang and Chao, 2014;Li et al, 2019b;Liu and Li, 2020;Sun et al, 2020;Xiao et al, 2020;Zheng et al, 2016b;Zheng et al, 2019). The existing literature explores metro's effects on land use and density, property development, urban renewal, UUS utilisation, car dependence, traffic congestion, air quality and GHG emissions.…”

“…In the process of commercial suburbanisation that separated residential activities from commercial activities in the urban core area, residents relocated from the urban core area to the suburban areas. The process is closely related to metro development in Seoul (Lee et al, 2021). In the suburbs of London, construction of new metro stations during the 19th and 20th centuries increased suburban populations, while additional population density contributed to more metro developments.…”

COVID-19 confines recreational gatherings in Seoul to familiar, less crowded, and neighboring urban areas

“…2a). As the subway system is densely associated with commercial activities in Seoul (31), our reservation accommodation history data is a good proxy of social gathering activities.…”