A Case Study of Transit-Oriented Transportation Development and Land Use in China

In recent years, with strong economic development and rapid urbanization in China, traffic congestion has become a common phenomenon in urban areas. Focusing on the high-density development of land use in China, the urban population has become highly concentrated and the number of vehicles has also increased exponentially. Traffic congestion problems have become more and more serious in most of the major cities in China. To mitigate the problems, researchers and planners have learned to use a coordinated approach balancing the transportation development and land use. Transit-oriented development (TOD) refers to residential and commercial districts located surrounding a transit station or corridor with high quality service, good walkability, good parking management, and other design features that facilitate transit use and maximize overall accessibility; it is the new fast growing trend in creating vibrant and livable communities. The TOD has become one of the leading urban planning models in China. In this paper, one of the residential and commercial districts in Chengdu, which is the largest city in the southwest of China, was selected for the model study in coordinating the transportation development and land use. The study was based on the TOD model and the genetic algorithm (GA) approach using the MATLAB software. It was shown that the optimal solution significantly increased the density and consistency of the land use when compared with the current construction plan. The traffic flow on the major road of this community was just around 67% of its predicted traffic capacity. The feasibility and effectiveness of the TOD model was verified and recommendations were given for managing the transportation development and land use.