Using Smart Card Data of Metro Passengers to Unveil the Urban Spatial Structure: A Case Study of Xi’an, China

This study adopted smart card data collected from metro systems to identify city centers and illustrate how city centers interacted with other regions. A case study of Xi’an, China, was given. Specifically, inflow and outflow patterns of metro passengers were characterized to measure the degree of population agglomeration of an area, i.e., the centricity of an area. On this basis, in order to overcome the problem of determining the boundaries of the city centers, Moran’s I was adopted to examine the spatial correlation between the inflow and outflow of ridership of adjacent areas. Three residential centers and two employee centers were identified, which demonstrated the polycentricity of urban structure of Xi’an. With the identified polycenters, the dominant spatial connections with each city center were investigated through a multiple linkage analysis method. The results indicated that there were significant connections between residential centers and employee centers. Moreover, metro passengers (commuters mostly) flowing into the identified employee centers during morning peak-hours mainly came from the northern and western area of Xi’an. This was consistent with the interpretation of current urban planning, which validated the effectiveness of the proposed methods. Policy implications were provided for the transport sector and public transport operators.