Effects of built environment on metro ridership at a microscopic scale: a case study of Xi’an, China

ABSTRACTFew studies have examined the relationship at the microscopic spatial scale. In this study, multiple sources of data including mobile phone signal data, automatic fare collection system data, geo-information data, and street-view image data are combined to measure metro ridership and built environment at the plot or block scale. The Random Gradient Boosting Decision Tree was used to explore relationship between the built environment and ridership. The results show the following: (1) the relationship between built environment and ridership shows different types of curves. (2) The path distance to the metro station and the visual perception of road space have more significant impacts on ridership than road network density. (3) The location of the grid also affects grid-level metro ridership. The results suggest that planners should consider the locational factors, pay attention to the different effective thresholds of different variables on ridership and the longitudinal landscaping of non-motorized urban roads.KEYWORDS: Built environmentnon-motorized friendly designnon-linear relationshipmicroscopic spatial scale