Uncovering structural diversity in commuting networks. Global and local entropy

TL;DR

This paper explores how entropy measures reveal the evolving complexity and structural diversity of commuting networks, aiding urban planning and policy for decentralization and resilience.

Contribution

It introduces a comparative analysis of global and local entropy measures in commuting networks, highlighting their distinct insights for urban system understanding.

Findings

Entropy varies across network scales, indicating different structural characteristics.

Local entropy identifies employment hubs and interdependencies.

Entropy measures can inform decentralization and resilience policies.

Abstract

In this paper we revisit the concept of mobility entropy. Over time, the structure of spatial interactions among urban centres tends to become more complex and evolves from centralised models to more scattered origin and destination patterns. Entropy measures can be used to explore this complexity, and to quantify the degree of structural diversity of in- and out-flows at different scales and across the system. We use toy models of commuting networks to examine global and local measures, allowing the comparison to occur between different parts of the system. We show that entropy at the link and node level give different insights on the characteristics of the systems, enabling us to identify employment hubs and interdependencies between and within different parts of the system. We discuss how these can be used to inform planning and policy decisions oriented towards decentralisation and resilience.