The Impact of Built Environment Factors on Elderly People's Mobility Characteristics by Metro System Considering Spatial Heterogeneity

This study used metro smart-card data from Wuhan, China, and explored the impact of the built environment on the metro ridership and station travel distance of elderly people using geographically weighted regression (GWR). First, our results show that elderly ridership at transfer stations is significantly higher than that at non-transfer stations. The building floor area ratio and the number of commercial facilities positively impact elderly ridership, while the number of road intersections and general hospitals has the opposite impact, of which factors show significant heterogeneity. Second, our results show that the average travel distance of terminal stations is significantly higher than that of non-terminal stations, and the average travel distance of non-transfer stations is higher than that of transfer stations. The distance of stations from the subcenter and building volume ratio have a positive effect, while station opening time and betweenness centrality have a negative effect. Our findings may provide insights for the optimization of land use in the built environment of age-friendly metros, help in the formulation of relevant policies to enhance elderly mobility, and provide a reference for other similar cities.

Automated summary

This study used metro smart-card data from Wuhan, China to explore the impact of the built environment on the metro ridership and station travel distance of elderly people. The results showed that elderly ridership at transfer stations was significantly higher than that at non-transfer stations. Factors such as building floor area ratio and the number of commercial facilities had a positive effect on elderly ridership, while factors like the number of road intersections and general hospitals had a negative effect. Furthermore, the average travel distance of terminal stations was significantly higher than that of non-terminal stations.