Predicting vibrancy of metro station areas considering spatial relationships through graph convolutional neural networks: The case of Shenzhen, China

Vibrancy is one of the most desirable outcomes of transit-oriented development (TOD). The vibrancy of a metro station area (MSA) depends partially on the MSA’s built-environment features. Predicting an MSA’s vibrancy with its built-environment features is of great interest to decision makers as these features are often modifiable by public interventions. However, little has been done on MSAs’ vibrancy in existing studies. On the one hand, seldom has the vibrancy of MSAs been explicitly explored, and measuring the vibrancy is essential. On the other hand, because MSAs are interconnected, one MSA’s vibrancy depends on the MSA’s features and those of relevant MSAs. Hence, selecting a suitable metric that quantifies spatial relationships between MSAs can better predict MSAs’ vibrancy. In this study, we identify four single-dimensional vibrancy proxies and fuse them into an integrated index. Moreover, we design a two-layer graph convolutional neural network model that accounts for both the built-environment features of MSAs and spatial relationships between MSAs. We employ the model in an empirical study in Shenzhen, China, and illustrate (1) how different metrics of spatial relationships influence the prediction of MSAs’ vibrancy; (2) how the predictability varies across single-dimensional and integrated proxies of MSAs’ vibrancy; and (3) how the findings of this study can be used to enlighten decision makers. This study enriches our understandings of spatial relationships between MSAs. Moreover, it can help decision makers with targeted policies for developing MSAs towards TOD.