An Approach to Measure Land Use Heterogeneity to Identify Homogeneous Urban Activity-Clusters

Transportation analysis and modeling often rely on pre-set structures of Traffic (or Transportation) Analysis Zones (TAZs) to conceptualize geographic space as it relates to urban activities and transportation flows. Theory suggests that appropriately created spatial structures for transportation analysis should represent areas with homogeneous characteristics in terms of land uses and activities. Here, the authors present that conventional TAZs do not necessarily provide satisfactory levels of homogeneity due primarily to the insufficiency of density as the primary measure to create these zones.  In this paper the authors introduce Dynamic Activity-Cluster Zones (DACZ) obtained through a novel method to develop spatial structures for transportation (and other) analyses. A DACZ is a homogeneous set of land parcels that is served by the same segment of transportation network. Depending on the transportation mode that is being analyzed, DACZs are identified through spatial aggregation of parcels around the associated transportation nodes (e.g. road intersections, or transit stops). The aggregation process is guided not only by combining similar densities, but also by merging areas with homogeneous land uses. Presenting a sample area from a Canadian metropolitan region the authors establish the conceptual model of the DACZ creation. The authors then perform a comparison between conventional TAZ structure and their model’s outcomes. The statistical comparison indicates that the authors' proposed spatial aggregation algorithm outperforms the conventional TAZs in terms of better identifying homogeneous areas. The authors conclude that dynamically defined zones developed based on homogeneity criterion better reflect the impacts of parcel-level homogeneity and can address shortcomings of pre-defined density-based zonal structures.

Language

  • English

Media Info

  • Media Type: Digital/other
  • Features: Figures; References; Tables;
  • Pagination: 18p

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01764426
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Report/Paper Numbers: TRBAM-21-03330
  • Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
  • Created Date: Feb 4 2021 4:48PM