Exploring the Effect of Built Environment Factors on Metro Station Ridership during the Holiday Season – A Case Study of the Beijing Metro System during the Chinese National Day Holidays

Previous studies have primarily focused on the effect of the built environment on ridership during weekdays and weekends. This paper aims to investigate the spatial heterogeneity of the effect of built environment factors on ridership at metro stations during National Day holidays. Beijing is divided into three zones from inner to outer areas. Taking metro station boarding and alighting ridership during National Dayholidays as the dependent variable, 13 built environment factors were selected as independent variables according to the “7D” dimension of the built environment. The recommended pedestrian catchments (PCA) combinations for the three zones in Beijing are 400 m_500 m_400 m by using the Multi-Scale Geographically Weighted Regression (MGWR) model. We investigated the effect of built environment factors on metro ridership and spatial heterogeneity. The influencing factors that have significant effects on both boarding and alighting ridership are building density, number of commercial facilities, bus lines density, number of entrance and exit, number of office facilities, mixed utilization of land and road density. The MGWR model results are helpful to propose targeted strategies for revitalising the built environment around metro stations.