01519384

Component

In this paper, the authors analyze the data from New York City taxis and comprehensively explore the underlying patterns of urban taxi trips. Though a number of studies have been conducted on taxi data, most make use of the data superficially. However, data from taxicabs over time and space provide an opportunity to characterize and better understand urban activity and mobility. Using taxi trip origin and destination locations, the authors start by looking into the general urban taxi trip distribution across New York City. The overall spatial pattern is found to be highly concentrated in Manhattan and five hot spots are selected for further analysis. In order to reveal the similarity among taxi trips, a two-step clustering algorithm is used to classify taxi trips based on land use types, travel distance and trip starting time. Besides the general patterns, several aspects related to taxi trips are specifically addressed. Unbalanced taxi trips are observed from both inbound and outbound to the Manhattan area. Airport based taxi trips are found to have distinct characteristics. Moreover, taxi trip mobility is investigated based on the distance distribution, and urban geographical boundaries are found to have significant impact on taxi trip mobility.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AP060 Paratransit. Alternate title: Characterizing Urban Dynamics Using Large-Scale Taxicab Data.

01503729

14-5301

English

20p

2014

Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; References; Tables

Mobility; Origin and destination; Taxi services; Travel patterns; Trip distribution; Trip length

Manhattan (New York, New York); New York (New York)

Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2014 Paper #14-5301

PRP, TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Jan 27 2014 3:51PM