Metro ridership recoverability and the built environment: Exploring station-level non-linear impacts
Document Type
Journal Article
Publication Date
2025
Subject Area
place - urban, mode - bus, mode - subway/metro, ridership - modelling, ridership - mode choice, land use - impacts, land use - planning, infrastructure - station
Keywords
Metro ridership, Ridership resilience, Built environment, Non-linear dynamics
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of resilience in metro ridership, as it shifted travel choices towards private transport modes, thereby undermining sustainable transportation. Focusing on the recovery phase of transit system disruptions, this study proposes a new measure of ridership recoverability, inspired by the traditional resilience triangle, and employs the XGBoost model to investigate the nonlinear relationships of land use variables, along with accessibility and network structure measures, with metro ridership and its recoverability. Our findings show that bus services around metro stations are positively correlated with both ridership and its recoverability. In contrast, some land use variables have opposite associations with ridership and recoverability. For example, increasing commercial uses promotes ridership but undermines recoverability; whereas mixed land uses dampen ridership but improve recoverability. These insights help better understand the complex interactions within urban transport systems and offer valuable considerations for decision-making in urban rail transit and land use planning.
Rights
Permission to publish the abstract has been given by Elsevier, copyright remains with them.
Recommended Citation
Cui, M., Yu, L., Dai, Z., Wu, Y., Wang, Y., & Cao, J. (2025). Metro ridership recoverability and the built environment: Exploring station-level non-linear impacts. Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 104852.

Comments
Transportation Research Part D Home Page:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/13619209