Influences of Built Environment at Residential and Work Locations on Commuting Distance: Evidence from Wuhan, China

Ensuring that commuting distance remains within a certain range has important effect of residents' quality of life. Although many studies have investigated the relationship between the built environment and residents' commuting distance, limited evidence has been provided of the impact of job location. As such, in this study, we used data from the Wuhan Metropolitan Development Area in China and applied Bayesian linear regression (BLR) models to examine the impact of the built environment at both residential and job locations on commuting distances for residents. Our findings showed that, for residential locations, the residential density, land use mix, number of intersections, parking service level, and number of companies have a significant negative effect on commuting distance, whereas the plot ratio, distance to sub-employment centers, number of metro stations, and number of bus stops have a significant positive effect on commuting distance. For employment locations, land use mix, parking service level, and number of companies have a significant negative effect on commuting distance, whereas job density, number of intersections, distance to sub-employment centers, number of metro stations, and number of bus stops have a significant positive effect on commuting distance. By describing the influence of the built environment at both residential and job locations on commuting distance, our findings are conducive to the optimization of land use and the formulation of related policies to reduce commuting distance, which has a positive effect on improving residents' quality of life and reducing energy emissions and air pollution.