Identification of urban regions’ functions in Chengdu, China, based on vehicle trajectory data

Data about human trajectories has been widely used to study urban regions that are attractive to researchers and are considered to be hotspots. It is difficult, however, to quantify the function of urban regions based on the varieties of human behavior. In this research, the authors developed a clustering method to help discover the specific functions that exist within urban regions. This method applies the Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) to classify regions’ inflow and trip count characteristics. It regroups these urban regions using the Pearson Correlation Coefficient (PCC) clustering method based on those typical characteristics. Using a large amount of vehicle trajectory data (approximately 1,500,000 data points) in the Chinese city of Chengdu, the authors demonstrate that the method can discriminate between urban functional regions, by comparing the proportion of surface objects within each region. This research shows that vehicle trajectory data in different functional urban regions possesses different time-series curves, while similar types of functional regions can be identified by these curves. Compared with remote sensing images and other statistical methods which can provide only static results, the authors' research can provide a timely and effective approach to determine an urban region’s functions.

• Record URL:
  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0215656
• Supplemental Notes:
  • © 2019 Qingke Gao et al.
• Authors:
  • Gao, Qingke
  • Fu, Jianhong
  • Yu, Yang
  • Tang, Xuehua
• Publication Date: 2019

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: e0215656
• Serial:
  • PLoS One
  • Volume: 14
  • Issue Number: 4
  • Publisher: Public Library of Science
  • EISSN: 1932-6203
  • Serial URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/
• Publication flags:

  Open Access (libre)

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Cluster analysis; Time series; Trajectory; Urban areas
• Geographic Terms: Chengdu (China)
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; Planning and Forecasting;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01707061
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Jun 4 2019 9:39AM