Examining the Nonlinear Relationship Between Built Environment and Residents’ Leisure Travel Distance: A Case Study of Guangzhou, China

Understanding the spatiotemporal characteristics of residents’ leisure travel distances (hereafter referred to as “RLTD”) and their underlying influencing factors is pivotal to reducing leisure travel costs and enhancing travel experiences. However, scholars have yet to identify leisure travel behavior and quantify RLTD accurately, and the nonlinear effects of the built environment on such distances remain underexplored. Therefore, this study, selecting Guangzhou as the case, employed multi-source data to measure RLTD and utilized a random forest model to explore the nonlinear relationship between the built environment and RLTD. Our findings are as follows. (1) Leisure activities among Guangzhou residents are dominated by short- and medium-distance travel (<10 km). Furthermore, RLTD exhibits significant spatiotemporal heterogeneity: on weekdays, it follows a zonal pattern where distances increase from the urban core to the periphery; conversely, on weekends, low-RLTD areas show a multi-center agglomeration pattern. (2) Proximity to central business districts (CBD) and large commercial centers, as well as optimal parking facility provision, emerge as the strongest predictors of RLTD on both weekdays and weekends. (3) All built environment variables exert nonlinear effects on RLTD, with distinct thresholds between weekdays and weekends. Additionally, a noticeable interaction effect is observed between the “distance to CBD” variable and other covariates. This study implies that when designing targeted interventions to promote residents’ leisure travel experience, policymakers should account for the temporal variations in how the built environment complexly influences RLTD.