Scaling Laws of Spatial Visitation Frequency on Motorized Travel

Abstract

The scaling law is a functional relationship between two parameters. In the field of urban studies, the distribution of various phenomena follows the scaling law, e.g., travel time, travel distance, and visitation frequency. To capture the scaling law of spatial visitation frequency on a motorized vehicle, this study carried out a numerical study based on the license plate recognition (LPR) data of three cities, Hangzhou, Guiyang, and Xiaoshan in China. Firstly, according to the LPR data, vehicles are classified into different types, including foreign vehicles, on-demand ride-sourcing cars, and taxis. Then, the spatial visitation frequency of different vehicle types, different cities, and different time periods was calculated. The results show that the scaling law of the spatial visitation frequency always conforms to the exponential function, no matter the city types, time periods, or type of vehicles.