Temporal Heterogeneity in Land Use Effects on Urban Rail Transit Ridership—Case of Beijing, China

Understanding how land use affects urban rail transit (URT) ridership is essential for facilitating URT usage. While previous studies have explored the way that land use impacts URT ridership, few have figured out how this impact evolves over time. Utilizing URT turnstile and land use data in Beijing, we employed panel data analysis methods to verify the existence of the temporal heterogeneity of the impact and capture this temporal heterogeneity. The results identified time-varying impacts of land use on the URT boarding and alighting trips on weekdays and non-weekdays and also demonstrated the rationality of the mixed effects time-varying coefficient panel data (TVC-P) model in capturing this temporal heterogeneity accurately. The TVC-P model revealed how land use density appealed to URT commuting during weekday morning peak times, and how it triggered the generation of URT commutes during the weekday evening rush hours. The land use diversity promoted URT trips over an extended period on non-weekdays. Additionally, the study identified the time-varying impacts of specific land use on URT ridership. These insights provide both theoretical and empirical support for developing policies and actions that improve the efficiency of transportation systems and foster alignment between land use and transport.