How do taxi usage patterns vary and why? A dynamic spatiotemporal analysis in Beijing

Abstract

Existing studies lack attention to taxi usage dynamics, considering its trip proportion over other travel modes and its influencing factors at fine spatiotemporal resolutions. To fill these gaps, we propose a method for examining taxi usage in a grid of 1 km × 1 km cells per hour during a one-day cycle in Beijing. This method measures the differences between taxi trips from taxi trajectory data and mobile signaling data in the same week in January 2017. To explain the spatiotemporal variation in taxi usage, multiple linear models were used to investigate taxi usage dynamics with alternative transport modes, socioeconomic factors, and built environments. In summary, this study proposes to develop an indicator to measure taxi usage using multiple data sources. We confirm that taxi usage dynamics exist in both temporal and spatial dimensions. In addition, the effects of taxi usage factors vary over each hour in a one-day cycle. These findings are useful for urban planning and transport management, in which the dynamic interactions between taxi demand and distribution of facilities should be included.