Study on the Characteristics of Urban Residents’ Commuting Behavior and Influencing Factors from the Perspective of Resilience Theory: Theoretical Construction and Empirical Analysis from Nanjing, China

In the transitional period of China’s urbanization, commuting problems and demands are diversified and multi-level, so commuting research topics, viewpoints, and analysis paths should be organically combined to dynamically adapt to the complex commuting contradictions. Based on this, this paper introduces the resilience theory to improve the research paradigm of commuting behavior. Taking Nanjing, China as a case study, with the help of the survey data of commuting behavior of typical communities, this paper provides an empirical analysis of the characteristics and influencing factors of urban residents’ commuting behavior from the perspective of resilience theory. The results show that: (1) in the face of commuting pressure, to a large extent, most commuters can still obtain commuting adaptability and a medium level or higher of commuting resilience; and (2) personal attributes, living and employment environment, and commuting environment all have significant heterogeneity effects on commuting pressure, commuting adaptability, and commuting resilience. From the perspective of resilience theory, the means of regulating commuting conflicts are flexible, which can not only directly reduce commuting pressure or optimize commuting adaptability, but also improve commuting resilience according to the specific commuting scenarios constructed by commuting pressure and adaptability. On the whole, the principles of comprehensive improvement, on-demand supply, and dynamic adjustment should be followed.