Journal of Advanced Transportation
Volume 2019 (2019), Article ID 6383097, 18 pages
https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/6383097

Research Article

Travel Behavior Analysis Using 2016 Qingdao’s Household Traffic Surveys and Baidu Electric Map API Data

Ge Gao,¹ Zhen Wang,² Xinmin Liu,¹ Qing Li,¹ Wei Wang,³ and Junyou Zhang¹

¹Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao 266590, China
²Qingdao City Planning and Design Institute, Qingdao 266071, China
³Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266100, China

Correspondence should be addressed to Ge Gao; gaoge1@sdust.edu.cn

Received 18 December 2018; Accepted 24 February 2019; Published 11 March 2019

Academic Editor: Jose E. Naranjo

Copyright © 2019 Ge Gao et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract.

Household traffic surveys are widely used in travel behavior analysis, especially in travel time and distance analysis. Unfortunately, any one kind of household traffic surveys has its own problems. Even all household traffic survey data is accurate, it is difficult to get the trip routes information. To our delight, electric map API (e.g., Google Maps, Apple Maps, Baidu Maps, and Auto Navi Maps) could provide the trip route and time information, which remedies the traditional traffic survey’s defect. Thus, we can take advantage of the two kinds of data and integrate them into travel behavior analysis. In order to test the validity of the Baidu electric map API data, a field study on 300 taxi OD pairs is carried out. According to statistical analysis, the average matching rate of total OD pairs is 90.74%, which reflects high accuracy of electric map API data. Based on the fused data of household traffic survey and electric map API, travel behavior on trip time and distance is analyzed. Results show that most purposes’ trip distances distributions are concentrated, which are no more than 10 kilometers. It is worth noting that students have the shortest travel distance and company business’s travel distance distribution is dispersed, which has the longest travel distance. Compared to travel distance, the standard deviations of all purposes’ travel time are greater than the travel distance. Car users have longer travel distance than bus travelers, and their average travel distance is 8.58km.

1. Introduction

It is axiomatic that a model can never be better than the data from which it is estimated [1]. Household traffic surveys are mainly used in transport planning and urban planning. In early days, household traffic surveys are customarily conducted by telephone, face-to-face interviewing, having become expensive and dangerous to accomplish in most urban areas of the continent [2]. Outside North America, face-to-face interviews are still done, although costs are high and there are threats to the safety of interviewers. Computer-assisted telephone (CATI) survey is the main method presently in some countries, especially in North America. However, the overall response rate is low. In order to overcome the shortfall in trips of CATI [3, 4], some countries, such as the US and Switzerland, try to have a household traffic surveys using GPS location devices [5–9]. However, it also faces some problems. For example, high expense: GPS devices are fairly expensive, with passive devices, capable of storing many days’ worth of data, costing on the order of US$750 each; signal loss: serious degradation of the signal often happens in various circumstances, including tunnels, urban canyons, and heavy tree canopies, and in certain types of vehicles.

The past 20 years has seen a tremendous increase in internet use and computer-mediated communication. Researches of online populations have led to an increase in the use of online surveys [10–13]. On one hand, it has some advantages including access to individuals in distant locations, the ability to reach difficult to contact participants, and the convenience of having automated data collection, which reduces researcher time and effort [14]. On the other hand, the disadvantages, such as uncertainty over the validity of the data and sampling issues, and concerns surrounding the design, implementation, and evaluation of an online survey are also obvious [14].

In order to cast off the deficiency of one kind traffic survey method, several traffic survey methods are used to reap the accurate traffic data in Qingdao’s third traffic survey (2016). They include online-survey, face-to-face interviewing, public transport survey, traffic flow survey, exit-entry survey, and other surveys (see Section 2).

Travel behavior study often needs huge traffic data which would include traffic survey data (such as household survey data) and some other data (such as mobile phone data, and GPS data) which is related to travel behavior that is also required. A number of studies analyze the details of travel behavior using household traffic survey data [15–27]. Revealing general characteristics of travel behavior, the researchers also use the household traffic survey data to achieve a variety of particular research purposes [28–36].

Some researchers have done some travel behavior analysis using the fusion data or multisource traffic data, such as the smart card data [37–44]; location-based services data (Global Positioning System (GPS) devices [45–48]). With respect to mobile phone systems, we can see Steenbruggen, Borzacchiello, Nijkamp, and Scholten, 2013 for a review.

Considering the disadvantages of household traffic survey data, we analyzed the travel behavior with different purposes and travel modes (car and bus) by combining household traffic survey data in 2016 and Baidu electric map API data in this paper. The accuracy of Baidu electric map API data is also validated by the actual taxi OD pair survey. This paper is organized as follows. The detail of Qingdao’s 2016 traffic survey is described in Section 2, and the Baidu electric map API data in our research are presented in Section 3. In Section 4, the results of trip time and distance with different purposes and modes are shown and analyzed in detail. Finally, we discuss our work in Section 5.

2. Household Traffic Survey Data in Qingdao

2.1. Necessity of the Third Traffic Survey

Qingdao had two household traffic surveys in 2002 and 2010, respectively. The first survey in 2002 found out the basic rule of the residents’ travel at that time and had an important effect on traffic network analysis. In order to adapt the city’s rapid development and the needs of subway construction, the government had the second traffic survey in 2010, which plays an important foundation supporting role in the design of subway lines 1, 2, 3, 4, and 8. After that, great changes have taken places in recent years in Qingdao city’s population quantity, structure, function, area, population structure, occupational structure of residents, trip structure, and the car ownership and the original survey data cannot support the resident trip analysis now. In view of this, the government had the third traffic survey in 2016. Figures 1 and 2 give the average trips, average trip time, and average distance from 1992 to 2015 and Figure 3 shows the urban area expansion from 1992 to 2015.

Figure 1: Average trips per day in the 3 traffic surveys of Qingdao.

Figure 2: Average trip time and distance per day in the 3 traffic surveys of Qingdao.

Figure 3: Urban area change of Qingdao from 1992 to 2015.

2.2. Traffic Survey Design

(1) Preliminary Preparation for the Third Traffic Survey. In order to improve the enthusiasm for participation and ensure the smooth implementation of the trip survey, the sense of this household traffic survey and the method of filling in questionnaires of resident trip survey are propagated by television news, newspaper, broadcasting, bus TV, Metro TV, and so on. Some Wechat public accounts, such as Qingdao Daily, Qingdao News, and New Life of Qingdao Metro, are also used to push the sense of this household traffic survey and the online-survey questionnaires.

(2) Traffic Survey Design. The third survey is classified into 6 categories and 16 classifications, which includes household survey, public transport survey, traffic flow survey, exit-entry survey, mobile phone data, and other surveys. The specific survey content is listed in Table 1 and the main survey point is shown in Figure 4. As shown in Table 1, this survey combines mobile phone data, traffic detection data, online-survey data, face-to-face interviewing data, IC card data, and GPS data. Resident trip survey mainly adopted online-survey questionnaire and household survey questionnaire. Public transport survey includes subway survey, bus car data, GPS data, and taxi data. Traffic flow survey and exit and entry survey mainly used the traffic surveillance system and traffic flow monitoring system.

Table 1: Traffic survey content.

6 categories
16 classification
Survey time
Scope and source of investigation

Mobile phone data
Mobile phone data
Aug-Oct,2015
All citizens in Qingdao

Household survey
online-survey
/Apl-,2016
38740 families in Qingdao

Face-to-face
/Apl,2016
2500 questionnaires

Public transport survey
Rail traffic survey
/Apl-/Apl,2016
10 stations of M3

Bus survey
/Sep-/Sep,2015
Bus card data of 334 lines, one week’s GPS data of 5387 buses

Taxi survey
/Apl-/Apl,2015
All taxis in Qingdao

Traffic flow survey
Check line survey
/Apl-/Apl,2016
70 roads of 5 check lines

Important intersections
/Apl-/Apl,2016
293 intersections

Speed survey
/Sep-/Sep,2015
One week’s GPS data of buses

Exit-Entry survey
Traffic volume survey of external passenger hub
Dec,2015
Airport, Railway stations and Coach stations

Volume survey of highways
Sep,2015
All highways of Qingdao

Volume survey of expressway entrances
Sep,2015
Expressway entrances in Qingdao

Other surveys
Land use status
Sep-Dec,2015
Urban and Rural Planning Bureau

Population-employment
Sep-Dec,2015
Statistical Bureau

Hotel distribution
Sep-Dec,2015
Tourism Bureau

Car ownership distribution
Sep-Dec,2015
Traffic Police detachment

Figure 4: The main traffic survey point.

As shown in Table 2, every row is a trip (OD). Family 3 has 3 members, i.e., 8, 9, and 10. Family 4 has 2 members, i.e., 11 and 12.

Table 2: Online-survey samples.

OD Number
Family ID
Personal ID
Origin
Destination
Purpose
Trip mode

Longitude
Latitude
Departure time
Longitude
Latitude
Arrival time
Bus
Car
Taxi
Walk
Subway
Bike
Commuting Bus

12
3
8
120.4378
36.1007
7:30
120.4144
36.1314
7:55
Work
No
Yes
No
No
No
No
No

13
3
8
120.4144
36.0857
17:30
120.3796
36.0875
17:45
Shopping or F&B
No
Yes
No
No
No
No
No

14
3
8
120.3796
36.0875
18:15
120.4378
36.1007
18:30
Home
No
Yes
No
No
No
No
No

15
3
9
120.4378
36.1007
7:20
120.4377
36.1008
7:25
School
No
No
No
Yes
No
No
No

16
3
9
120.4377
36.1008
16:00
120.4378
36.1007
16:05
Home
No
No
No
Yes
No
No
No

14
3
10
120.4378
36.1007
7:30
120.4335
36.1225
7:50
Work
Yes
No
No
No
No
No
No

15
3
10
120.4335
36.1225
17:00
120.4378
36.1007
17:40
Home
Yes
No
No
No
No
No
No

16
4
11
120.3988
36.0813
7:10
120.4118
36.1207
8:10
Work
Yes
No
No
No
No
No
No

17
4
11
120.4118
36.1207
18:00
120.3988
36.0813
19:10
Home
Yes
No
No
No
No
No
No

18
4
12
120.3988
36.0813
7:10
120.3976
36. 1027
7:56
Work
No
No
No
No
Yes
No
No

19
4
12
120.3976
36.1027
20:00
120.3988
36.0813
20:40
Home
No
No
No
No
Yes
No
No

3. Electric Map API Data

Although traditional traffic survey could reap some data we need, most traffic survey, especially the online-survey and face-to-face interviewing only acquire the OD information, trip mode, and trip time. It is difficult to get the trip routes information. At the same time, the trip time is usually inaccurate. What is exciting is that electric map API (e.g., Google Maps, Apple Maps, Baidu Maps, Auto Navi Maps and so on) could provide the trip route and time information, which remedies the traditional traffic survey’s defect. In this paper, we try to use Baidu Maps to find the routes.

Baidu Map supplies Web API v2.0 service for developers. People could obtain the route planning service by the style of HTTP/HTTPS. Table 3 shows the data sample from Baidu Maps Web API v2.0.

Table 3: Data sample of Baidu Maps Web API v2.0.

OD
Number
Recommended Travel Routes
Length (m)
Travel time(s)
Initial Walk Distance (m)
Initial walk time (s)
Travel distance by bus
Travel time by bus
Arrival walk distance (m)
Arrival walk time (s)

8
1
10685
3286
164
131
10202
2300
319
255

8
2
10580
3782
383
306
229
183
255
204

8
3
12363
4193
386
308
10890
2415
1087
869

8
4
11989
4145
179
143
10447
2311
1363
1090

8
5
11183
4127
143
114
363
290
323
258

As shown in Table 3, for one OD, it recommends 5 routes. For bus travelers, it includes the route length, travel time, initial walk time, initial walk time, travel distance by bus, travel time by bus, arrival walk distance, and arrival walk time and so on.

In fact, we do not know the data validity of the Baidu Maps Web API v2.0. For this, we take taxi as the test object and have a taxi follow investigation. The accuracy of the Baidu Maps Web API v2.0 is checked by comparing the recommended data and actual taxi investigate data.

Table 4 gives the style of taxi following questionnaire. As shown in Table 4, taxi following questionnaire includes OD pairs, departure time, arrival time, the passing intersections, and the road and traffic conditions.

Table 4: Taxi following questionnaire.

Taxi following questionnaire

Weather:—Date: —Investigator: —

OD Number
Departure time
Origin
Passing intersections
Destination
Arrival time
Travel time cost(m)
Road and traffic conditions

1
2
…

1
8:00
Railway Station
Taian Road-Feixian Road
Feixian Road-Feixian branch Road
…
Polar Ocean World
8:52
52
Congestion

2
9:30
MIXC
Hongkong Road-Shandong Road
Shandong Road-Minjiang Road
…
Shiyan community
10:02
32
Accident

3
13:30
Taidong
Taidong 6th Road-Weihai Road
Chenkou Road-Weihai Road
…
Jinguihuayuan community
13:53
23
Normal

4
14:23
Wanda Plaza
Xuzhou Road-Longcheng Road
Xuzhou Road-Dunhua Road
…
Fuan community
14:48
25
Normal

5
16:20
No.59 middle school
Yanan 3th Road-Huayan Road
Yanan 3th Road-Xiuzhan 3th Road
…
Liantong Building
16:28
8
Normal

6
17:00
Tianjiahuayuan community
Xintian Road-Hetian Road
Xintan Road-Ningxia Road
…
No.44 middle school
17:18
18
Congestion

7
18:00
No.83, Jiangxi Road
Jiangxi Road-Panyanghu Road
Jiangxi Road-Nanjing Road
…
No.162, Jiaoning Road
18:11
11
Congestion

8
20:20
No.1517, Wutaishan Road
Wutaishan Road-Tuanjie Road
Tuanjie Road-Jialingjiang west Road
…
Tianjiameiju community
19:00
40
Normal

Here, we randomly chose 300 OD pairs in Qingdao city from the total taxi survey ODs. Figure 5 shows the recommendation routes of the 300 OD pairs generated by Baidu Maps Web API v2.0.

Figure 5: Recommendation routes of the 300 OD pairs.

3.1. Accuracy Analysis on Recommended Routes Generated by Baidu Maps Web API v2.0

The coincidence factor of intersections is used to verify the accuracy of Web API. Specifically, the th OD pair’s matching rate can be written as follows:

In (1), is the th OD pair’s matching rate. When is bigger, the accuracy of the Web API data will be higher. is the coincidence number of intersections between the Web API’s recommendation route and actual taxi survey route of the th OD pair. is the number of intersections of actual taxi survey route of the th OD pair. is the number of OD pairs. Accordingly, the average matching rate of total OD pairs can be written as follows:

where is the total number of survey OD pairs.

According to statistical analysis, the average matching rate of total OD pairs is 90.74%. It is a high ratio which reflects high accuracy of Web API v2.0. However, in statistics, not all OD pairs’ matching rates are high. Here we chose three kinds of OD to analyze the matching rates. Table 5 gives the three kinds of OD pairs.

Table 5: Matching rate of three kinds of OD pairs.

Same
Recommendation
Survey
Recommendation
Survey

Origin
MIXC
Taidong
Wanda Plaza

Destination
Shiyan community
Jinguihuayuan community
Fuan community

Intersections
Hongkong Road-Shandong Road
Taidong 6th Road-Weihai Road
Taidong 6th Road-Weihai Road
Yanji Road-Xuzhou Road
Xuzhou Road-Longcheng Road

Shandong Road-Minjiang Road
Chenkou Road-Weihai Road
Chenkou Road-Weihai Road
Yanji Road-Lianyungang Road
Xuzhou Road-Dunhua Road

Shandong Road-Jiangxi Road
Changchun Road-Weihai Road
Changchun Road-Weihai Road
Yanji Road-Nanjing Road
Dunhua Road-Lianyungang Road

Shandong Road-Jiaoning Road
Hankou Road-Weihai Road
Hankou Road-Weihai Road
Yanji Road-Wuxing Road
Liangyungang Road-Haizhou Road

Shandong Road-Yanji Road
Shandong Road-Hangan Road
Hankou Road-Hexing Road
Yanji Road-Shaoxing Road
Lianyungang Road-Hangan Road

Shandong Road-Anshan Road
Anshan Road- Harbin Road
Dunhua Road-Zhenjiang Road
Yanji Road-Qingtian Road
Fuzhoubei Road-Dunhua Road

Shandong Road-Fushun Road
-
Xiwu Road-Zhenjiang Road
Qingting Road-Dunhua Road
Dunhua Road-Yongji Road

Hailun Road-Anda Road
-
Shandong Road-Hangan Road
Dunhua Road-Yongji Road
-

-
-
Anshan Road- Harbin Road
-
-

Matching Rate
100%
66.7%
14.3%

As shown in Table 5, between OD pair MIXC and Shiyan community, taxi survey route and Baidu’s recommended route have the same passing intersections. The ratio of intersections overlap is 100%, which reflects the Baidu API’s high accuracy. However, the OD pair Taidong and Jinguihuayuan community has the different results. There are three different intersections. The matching rate is 66.7%. The reason is explicable. We found that it was in evening peak, and the traffic congestion made the driver changing the route. Surprisingly, the survey route and recommendation route are totally non-overlapping between OD pair Wanda Plaza and Fuan community. The matching rate is only 14.3%. According to the investigation on Yanji Road, it is in construction repair during the survey day. Therefore, the taxi driver changed the trip route.

In a word, although the matching rates of intersections between some OD pairs are low, they are imaginable. Some unforeseen circumstances, such as the bad weather, accident, and congestion, would make drivers change their route which deviates from recommended routes.

Undoubtedly, according to the statistics on the 300 OD pairs, OD pairs’ matching rates are high (90.74%). Therefore, it is highly accurate and credible.

3.2. Accuracy Analysis on Recommended Trip Time Generated by Baidu Maps Web API v2.0

In order to further verify the validity of Baidu map Web API data, we also compare the travelling time. Here, two kinds of data are used to verify the accuracy of recommended trip time generated by Baidu Maps Web API v2.0. One is the 300 taxi OD survey data. As shown in Table 4, the trip time is also recorded. Here the ratio between the recommendation trip time and actual taxi survey time is used to verify the accuracy of the Baidu electric map API data. Specifically, the th OD pair’s time matching rate can be written as follows:

where is the Baidu electric map API recommendation trip time of the th OD pair. denotes the actual taxi survey trip time of the th OD pair. The average time ratio of total OD pairs can be calculated as follows:

According to statistical analysis, the average ratio of total OD pairs is 78.16%, which is lower than the average route matching rate of total OD pairs (90.74%). Unlike trip route, trip time has higher randomness, even the same route, the same time of different days, or the same route, different time with the same day. Therefore, we think the ratio (78.16%) is high enough that could reflect the high accuracy of Baidu electric map API data.

4. Data Fusion and Traveler Behavior Analysis in Time and Space

4.1. Data Fusion, Processing, and Curve Fitting

Trip survey could obtain the accurate OD pairs, trip mode, travel purpose and so on. However, it cannot reap the travel route information and the travel time is inaccurate. Consider that Web API could provide route planning service and its high accuracy. This paper tries to take advantage of the two kinds of data and integrate them together and then have some traffic behavior analysis based on the integrated data. Table 6 gives a sample of the integrated data. Table 6 includes the OD pairs, the length of the route between one OD, the origin coordinate, the destination coordinate, the passing intersections, trip purpose, trip mode, walk distance, and walk time.

Table 6: Sample of the integrated data.

OD Number
Length (m)
Travel time
(s)
Origin
Passed intersections
Destination
Purpose
Walking distance(m)
Walking time (s)
Trip mode

Longitude
Latitude
Longitude
Latitude

12
6319
2368
120.4378
36.1007
…
120.4144
36.1314
Work
1036
600
Bus

13
9634
3046
120.4378
36.0178
…
120.3796
36.0875
Shopping or F&B
759
450
Bus

14
14142
3531
120.3796
36.0875
…
120.4378
36.1007
Home
129
80
Car

15
6115
2356
120.4378
36.1007
…
120.4378
36.1008
Home
926
560
bus

16
3164
1261
120.4377
36.0813
…
120.4118
36.1207
Work
826
600
bus

17
1841
600
120.4118
36.1207
…
120.3988
36.0813
Home
527
506
bus

18
2436
760
120.3988
36.0813
…
120.3976
36. 1027
Work
679
620
bus

19
4326
1642
120.3976
36.1027
…
120.3988
36.0813
Home
260
206
car

Matplotlib is used to have a python drawing. Specifically, Pylab and pyplot are the main processing tools. Hist function in pyplot is used to have interval setting and sample statistics of corresponding intervals. Here, data is set 150 intervals by considering the numerical span and frequency statistics. According to every interval’s median value (independent variable) and the statistics (dependent variable), the least-square method is used to curve fitting. The mean and standard deviation of the travel time and distance are analyzed by Pandas in Python.

4.2. Travel Behavior Analysis with Different Purposes

This section discussed the travel behavior with 6 purposes (i.e., work, home, school, taking children to school, shopping, and company business) from the angle of trip distance and time.

Figure 6 shows trip distance distribution with 6 purposes. As shown in Figure 6, all curves with different trip purposes show normal distribution approximately. Most purposes’ trip distances distributions are concentrated, which are no more than 10 kilometers. It is relevant to the urban size, residence distribution, company distribution, and school distribution. Figure 7 shows the distribution of schools, residential communities, companies, supermarkets, and shopping arcades of Qingdao city. From Figure 7, we can see that, unlike western developed countries, Qingdao’s schools, residential communities, companies, supermarkets, and shopping arcades are concentrated in the urban area, which reflects Chinese most cities’ characteristics of non-separation of work and residence. It is worth noting that students have the shortest travel distance. The average travel distance is 5.34 kilometers. Similarly, taking children to school is the second shortest travel distance. Their average travel distance is 5.98 kilometers. It may have three reasons: most families preferring to choose nearby schools if their children go to school alone; the Qingdao’s education policy (such as the nearby enrollment policy); the number of schools being large.

Figure 6: Trip distance distribution with 6 travel purposes.

(a) The distribution of schools

(b) The distribution of offices

(c) The distribution of shopping arcades

Figure 7: Distributions of residential communities, schools, offices, and shopping centers in Qingdao.

For company business, its travel distance distribution is dispersed, and it has the longest travel distance (13.37 kilometers) which may be related to the randomness of company business.

As shown in Figure 8, the same with travel distance distribution, the average travel time of going to school and taking children to school is minimum. They are 22.54 minutes and 19.44 minutes. Because some parents drive children to school, its average travelling time is less than children going to school themselves. However, not all travelling time is directly proportional to travel distance. Taking company business and work as an example, although company business has the longest travel distance, work has the longest travel time instead of company business. Compared to travel distance, the standard deviations of all purposes’ travel time are bigger than the travel distance. This may be decided by the randomness of travel time. Unlike travel route, travel time is easier influenced by road and traffic conditions, such as signal control, traffic congestion, weather, accident, and driving habits. Another interesting thing is that most trip purposes have two peaks when the travel time is approximately 10 minutes and 30 minutes.

Figure 8: Trip time distribution with 6 travel purposes.

4.3. Travel Distance and Time Analysis with Different Modes

4.3.1. Travel Distance Analysis with Bus and Car

Figures 9, 10, and 11 show the travel distance distribution by bus and car with different purposes. For bus travelers, all purposes’ travel distance peaks are less than 5km and the average travel distance is 7.66km. Compared to work, going home and company business, going to school, taking children to school, and shopping’s travel distance distribution are more centralized. Their average travel distance is about 6.4km. The company business still has the longest average travel distance, 9.51km. Compared to bus travelers, car users have longer travel distance; their average travel distance is 8.58km. Work, going home, shopping, and company business travel by car have longer travel distance than bus. The most respective example is company business travel, 13.65km, 5 kilometers more than bus travel, which is determined by the high convenience and comfort of car service.

Figure 9: Car and bus travel distance distribution with different purposes.

Figure 10: Comparison of travel distance with different purpose by bus.

Figure 11: Comparison of travel distance with different purpose by car.

Interestingly, for purposes of going to school and taking children to school, car travelers will take shorter distance than bus travelers. The average travel distance of going to school by car is only 4.82km and taking children to school is 5.93km. Correspondingly, the average travel distance of going to school and taking children to school is 6.08km and 6.18km, respectively. Actually it is comprehensible. Car could achieve door-to-door service but not bus. Bus traveler should go to bus station first and then travel by bus. Some bus lines are even not the optimal route from home to school. However, for car traveler, they would choose the optimal route generally. In addition, bus travelers also must go to school from bus station. Thus, compared to car users, bus travelers would take more travel distance.

4.3.2. Travel Time Analysis with Bus and Car

Figures 12, 13, and 14 present car and bus travel time distribution with different purposes. Unlike travel distance distribution, travel time distribution has a great difference between car and bus. Bus travelers would spend more time than car travelers when finish their travel. Taking work as the example, compared to car users, bus traveler spends more than 28 minutes on average. On one hand, it is determined by the characteristic of bus. Bus travelers take extra walking time (go to station and go to work place), station waiting time, bus stop time, and even transfer time. On the other hand, it also reflects the low efficiency of bus system, such as the low departure frequency, unreasonable bus line and station setting, no bus lanes, and so on. The big difference between car and bus in travel time would induce more car travel demand which increases traffic congestion.

Figure 12: Car and bus travel time distribution with different purposes.

Figure 13: Comparison of bus travel time with different purposes.

Figure 14: Comparison of car travel time with different purposes.

Therefore, in order to alleviate the congestion, the traffic manager should improve the bus service to suppress the high increasing of the car demand. As shown in Figure 13, most bus travelers’ travel durations are between the intervals of 20 and 60 minutes. Most car travelers’ travel durations are between the intervals 2 and 40 minutes.

5. Discussion

This paper tries to integrate resident trip survey data and electric map API data together. In order to verify the accuracy of electric map API data, we take taxi as the test object and have a taxi follow investigation. Accuracy of recommended routes and travel time is analyzed. According to statistical analysis, the average matching rate of total OD pairs is 90.74%, which reflects high accuracy of electric map API data. In statistics, not all OD pairs’ matching rates are high. Some unforeseen circumstances, such as the bad weather, accident, and congestion, would make drivers change their route which deviates from recommended routes. According to statistical analysis, the average ratio of total OD pairs is 78.16%, which is lower than the average route matching rate of total OD pairs (90.74%). Unlike trip route, trip time has higher randomness, even the same route, or the same time of different days, or the same route, different time with the same day. Therefore, we think the ratio (78.16%) is high enough that could reflect the high accuracy of electric map API data.

Based on the fusion data, travel behavior with different purposes and modes is analyzed. We found that most purposes’ trip distances distributions are concentrated, which are no more than 10 kilometers. It is relevant to the urban size, residence distribution, company distribution, and school distribution. Unlike western developed countries, Qingdao’s schools, residential communities, companies, supermarkets, and shopping arcades are concentrated in the urban area, which reflects Chinese most cities’ characteristics of non-separation of work and residence. It is worth noting that students have the shortest travel distance. The average travel distance is 5.34 kilometers. Company business’s travel distance distribution is dispersed, and it has the longest travel distance (13.37 kilometers) which may be related to the randomness of company business. Compared to travel distance, the standard deviations of all purposes’ travel time are greater than the travel distance. This may be decided by the randomness of travel time. Unlike travel route, travel time is easier influenced by road and traffic conditions, such as signal control, traffic congestion, weather, accident, driving habits, and so on.

For bus travelers, all purposes’ travel distance peaks are less than 5km and the average travel distance is 7.66km. Compared to work, going home and company business, going to school, taking children to school, and shopping’s travel distance distribution are more centralized. Car users have longer travel distance than bus travelers, and their average travel distance is 8.58km. Work, going home, shopping, and company business travel by car have longer travel distance than bus. The most respective example is company business travel, 13.65km, 5 kilometers more than bus travel, which is determined by the high convenience and comfort of car service. What is surprising is that, for purposes of going to school and taking children to school, car travelers will take shorter distance than bus travelers.

Unlike travel distance distribution, travel time distribution has a great difference between car and bus. Bus travelers would spend more time than car travelers when finish their travel. The big difference between car and bus in travel time would induce more car travel demand which increases traffic congestion. Therefore, in order to alleviate the congestion, the traffic manager should improve the bus service to suppress the high increasing of the car demand.

Data Availability

The survey data are put into the file of Supplementary Materials. The route information of Baidu recommend is available online at https://map.baidu.com/.

Disclosure

The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Acknowledgments

This paper is partly supported by the NSFC (71801144, 71371111, 71322102, and 71701189) and the China National Funds for Distinguished Young Scientists (71525002).

Supplementary Materials

Attachment 1 is the field survey data and Baidu recommend routes of 300 taxi OD pairs. Attachment 2 is the OD pairs information with bus. Attachment 3 is the OD pairs information with car. (Supplementary Materials)

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