Analysis of Urban Visitor's Walkability Based On Mobile Data: The Case of Daejeon, Korea

TL;DR

This study analyzes urban walkability in Daejeon, Korea, using mobile data from visitors to understand city structure and demand through network analysis of POI and cell interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a bottom-up walkability measurement method based on mobile data, enabling detailed city structure analysis and potential demand estimation.

Findings

Potential demand can be identified through walkability-based division.

The method allows city-wide analysis starting from small units.

POI-centered structural analysis is feasible using visitor data and network analysis.

Abstract

The walkability of destinations plays a decisive role in obtaining a sense of place for urban visitors. For an improved walkability-based visit experience, the city structure is analyzed by dividing it into small units, starting with the destination. However, existing studies focus on the walkability of residents by administrative district and use limited contextual information and structural analysis tools. Therefore, this study aims to structurally understand walkability through network analysis with mobile-based visitor data collected from 822 point-of-interest (POI) in Daejeon. In this paper, the actual walking distance between 95,817 cells with visitors and POI is measured to calculate the edge weight and the influence of cells on POI. We analyze the POI-cell network through edge weight, extract nine communities, understand the city context through POI analysis and derive the following findings. Firstly, it is possible to determine the potential demand by the visitor's walkability-based division. Second, our walkability measurement method follows a bottom-up approach, starting with a small unit cell, understanding the entire city as a community extraction model, and possibly extending to other cities in Korea. Third, POI-centered structural analysis is possible using the number of visitors and distance in the proposed network analysis method.