A multilayer mobility network approach to inferring urban structures using shared mobility and taxi data

Abstract

Developing data-driven approaches to understanding urban structures is important for urban planning. However, it is still challenging to combine different transport datasets into a unified framework and reveal the dynamics of urban structures with the emergence of shared mobility. In this study, we propose two empirical multilayer networks to infer and profile urban structures. First, a temporal network is constructed using traditional taxi data over years to reveal the urban structures. Second, a multimodal network is constructed using shared mobility and traditional taxi data over a year to reveal the urban structures. The proposed networks are tested in New York City using a large volume of shared bike, shared vehicle, and traditional taxi data. The multilayer network centralities and community detection enable us to profile the characteristics of the urban flows and urban structure. The analytical results allow us to acquire a better understanding of urban structures from a multilayer perspective, and also provide a geocomputation framework that is useful for urban and geographic researchers.