Developing a TOD typology for Beijing metro station areas

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Highlights

  • A methodology to create a Transit Oriented Development (TOD) typology is developed.

  • The methodology is applied to the case of Beijing, China.

  • Six distinctive types of station areas in Beijing are identified.

  • The typology could support the identification of more targeted planning strategies.

  • The methodology can be adjusted to different geographic contexts.

Abstract

Across the world, Transit Oriented Development (TOD) offers a strategy to integrate land use and transport systems by clustering urban developments around public transport nodes in functionally dense and diverse, pedestrian- and cycling-friendly areas. Even though the basic philosophy of TOD seems to be the same in all contexts, its specific applications greatly differ in form, function and impacts, calling for context-based TOD typologies that can help map these local specificities and better focus policy interventions. In recent years, TOD has also been widely advocated and applied in China; however, so far no study has systematically developed a TOD typology in a Chinese context. This paper fills this gap for the case of the Beijing metropolitan area. The approach is based on the node-place model, introduced by Bertolini (1996, 1999) to chart ‘Transit’ and ‘Development’ components, expanding it with a third, ‘Oriented’, dimension to quantify the degree of orientation of transit and development components towards each other. The paper reviewed the main TOD indicators in the international literature, selected those appropriate for the Beijing context, and classified the metro station areas into TOD types through a cluster analysis. The six identified types of metro station areas in Beijing demonstrate how the context-specific typology can support local urban and transport planners, designers and policymakers when considering future interventions.

Introduction

Growing concern about the effects of rapid urban growth and increasing mobility has fueled a debate about planning strategies that can help manage development. One focus is on effective integration of land use and the transport system (Banister, 2008, Pan et al., 2011, Suzuki et al., 2013), with Transit Oriented Development (TOD) as a commonly followed approach. TOD advocates the clustering of urban developments around public transport nodes as well as creating areas with high urban density, diverse land use, and pedestrian- and cycling-friendly environments (Bertolini and Spit, 1998, Cervero, 1998, Cervero, 2004, Dittmar and Ohland, 2004). Even though the basic philosophy of TOD seems to be the same in all contexts, studies show large differences in the applications of TOD principles. For instance, in North America and Australia, the focus seems mostly on re-centering suburban sprawl around transit stops and networks (Cervero, 1998, Cervero, 2004, Dittmar and Ohland, 2004.; Hemsley, 2009); in Europe it seems rather on the redevelopment of existing station areas (Bertolini and Spit, 1998); in Asia, TOD seems to be seen above all as a strategy of channeling mega-city growth in mass rapid transit corridors (Zhang and Liu, 2007, Yang and Lew, 2009); in South America it seems more often considered as a way of re-connecting and re-focusing around transit already dense urban developments (Lindau et al., 2010).

Context-based TOD typologies – aiming to both account for local differences and support policymakers, planners, developers and designers – have been developed based on the following assumptions. First, the similarities within one type could allow urban and transport planners and policymakers to develop more targeted sets of strategies to promote TOD (Renne and Wells, 2005, Reusser et al., 2008). Second, each type of station areas possesses a set of morphological characteristics (e.g. number of metro directions from metro station, street density within station area) and functional characteristics (e.g. functional composition/diversity of economic entities in a station area), which can help to answer planning and design operational questions (Belzer et al., 2002, Kamruzzaman et al., 2014). These might include questions such as how many commuters the area can support, whether jobs and residences should be relocated to make best use of the station, or whether the walkability of the area should be improved. Third, a classification enables local governments and developers to invest in each type of TOD to achieve a better overall leverage of benefits across the region (Center for Transit-Oriented Development, 2011). Fourth, a context-based typology might give policymakers a better understanding of the relationships between TOD and the area's urban problems, by analyzing the impacts of different types of TOD (Xie, 2012).

China is undergoing rapid and sustained urbanization, reaching 51.3% in 2011 (Pan and Xu, 2014). According to predictions, nearly 70% of the population will live in urban areas by 2035 (Heilig, 2012). This growth is accompanied by many challenges that TOD can address, according to its advocates, such as increasing scarcity of available urban land (Xie, 2012, Suzuki et al., 2013), long commuting time (Wang and Chai, 2009, Clower et al., 2011), air pollution and increasing greenhouse gas emissions (Xie, 2012, Pan et al., 2013), and inequality of spatial accessibility (Cervero and Day, 2008). According to a number of studies (see Yang and Li, 2004, Wang et al., 2007, Zhang and Liu, 2007, Lu and Zhao, 2008), the implementation of TOD in the metropolises of China has been considered a potential solution for several years; however, no study has developed a systematic TOD typology in a Chinese context.

To address this important knowledge gap, the paper develops a TOD typology for the Chinese metropolitan context of Beijing. The capital region is one of the four main metropolises of China, with 21.5 million residents and 1385.6 km2 urban built areas in 2014 (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2015). Concerning the mode of transport, we focus on the metro system, the backbone of the public transport system. In 2014, the metro, with 18 lines, 268 stations and 527 km of track in operation, served 10 million passengers each workday in 11 of Beijing's 16 districts (Beijing Mass Transit Railway Operation Corporation Limited,, Beijing Infrastructure Investment Corporation Limited, 2015). While Beijing is used as the case of application, the methodology – as discussed below - is innovative in several respects and of more general value, and is meant to be applicable also in other contexts, both in China and beyond.

The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 discusses the theoretical basis, namely the node-place model introduced by Bertolini, 1996, Bertolini, 1999, and our interpretations and modifications. Section 3 presents a systematic approach to classifying metro station areas in Beijing, detailing the TOD indicators and their selection, the data used, and the classification methods. Section 4 discusses the classification results, in particular the six TOD types. In Section 5, we draw conclusions, reflect on the limitations of the study, and provide direction for future research efforts.

Section snippets

Theoretical background

The essence of a TOD classification is the grouping of station areas that have a common set of morphological and functional characteristics. One approach is to qualitatively label and describe types of TOD. For example, in his pioneering book Calthorpe (1993: p57) distinguishes between ‘urban TOD’ and ‘neighbourhood TOD’, based on the main spatial orientation of the functions in the area. However, quantitative approaches are increasingly preferred by planners and researchers alike, because they

Methodology

To develop and implement our extended node-place model, we first assembled ‘Transit’, ‘Oriented’, and ‘Development’ indicators from the international TOD literature. Second, based on filtering by means of local knowledge, literature citation, distinctiveness, and public availability of data, we selected a set of indicators. Third, we geographically delineated TOD areas and measured the selected indicators. Fourth, we applied a multi-step procedure to identify distinct types of metro station

Six types of metro station areas

Of the six clusters (see Table 3, Figs. 2, and 3), C2 (N = 23), located in the periphery of the urban area and on the fingers of the metro system (see Fig. 3), comprises the station areas with the lowest scores on the T, O, and D aspects. Compared to C2, C1 (N = 72) scores higher on distance to jobs and residences (closer to the station), functional density and diversity (higher).

The station areas in C4 (N = 55) are located in the periphery of the core urban districts or on the outer palm of the

Conclusion

The aim of the research was to develop a TOD typology in the metropolitan context of China, and specifically for metro station areas in Beijing. Next to analyzing a hitherto understudied context, we also aimed at building upon and improving existing methodologies with an eye at a wider applicability of the approach. In particular, we extended the node-place model focus on the ‘Transit’ and ‘Development’ dimension, adding the third, new dimension ‘Oriented’ to represent the functional and

Funding acknowledgement

This work was supported by China Scholarship Council (CSC) [grant numbers 201406040059, year of 2014] and the Department of Geography, Planning and International Development Studies (GPIO)/Amsterdam Institute of Social Science Research (AISSR), University of Amsterdam (UvA).

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