Potential Effect of Air Pollution on the Urban Traffic Vitality: A Case Study of Nanjing, China

Abstract

Studies on the vitality of urban residents’ daily commuting and air pollution are scarce. Based on the cell phone mobile signaling data, urban air quality observation data, and urban transportation infrastructure environment data of Nanjing in 2019, and through the panel regression model and the standard deviation ellipse analysis (SDE) to measure the impact of air pollution on residents’ daily traffic vitality, we construct the survey panel matrix data system with streets as spatial units. Through SDE and panel regression model analysis, we measured the restraining effect of air pollution on the traffic vitality. The scope of the traffic vitality area SDE was found to shrink as the air quality index (AQI) increases. The study found three main characteristics: (1) Under different transportation models and different location conditions, there are obvious differences in traffic vitality. The entire city presents a trend of “northeast-southwest” axial expansion in the spatial pattern of the traffic vitality. Compared with the urban core area, the traffic vitality of residents in the north-south areas of Nanjing’s periphery has declined significantly. (2) The inhibitory effect of air pollution on public traffic vitality and self-driving traffic vitality are differences. Approximately one-tenth of traffic activities may be inhibited by air pollution. The weakening of traffic vitality greatly reduces the city’s ability to attract and gather people, materials, and resources. (3) The inhibitory effect of air pollution on traffic vitality is heterogeneous under different transportation infrastructure environments. The higher the public transportation station density and public transportation frequency of the street, the more obvious the suppression effect of air pollution. The higher the parking density, station accessibility, road intersections density, and transportation facility diversity, the lower the suppression effect of air pollution. This study elucidates the relationship among air pollution, the transportation infrastructure environment, and the traffic vitality, and provides significant guidelines for optimizing the organization of elements in the transportation infrastructure environment, thereby mitigating the inhibitory effect of air pollution on traffic vitality.