TOD Typology Based on Urban Renewal: A Classification of Metro Stations for Ningbo City

In recent decades, the transit-oriented development (TOD) concept has been widely used all over the world, especially in China, for the massive construction of urban public transportation systems with rail transit as the backbone. However, it is not easy to make significant changes in a city while building a transportation system, and the transit-guided urban development expected by the TOD concept has not been completely realized. The transformation of nearby areas with the guidance of transit is also becoming the choice of many Chinese cities, especially for cities that have only had subways for a few years. Unlike other international metropolitan cities, with metro systems of considerable scale, the modernization process of most of the small and medium-sized cities in China is being carried out simultaneously with metro-based public transportation guidance. For cities which are still in their initial stage of the backbone public transportation system, there is not enough previous experience and evidence to support the suitability of TOD typological analysis based on the node-place model. More research based on the node-place model has also shown practical applications of the TOD in developed cities. However, there are very few studies that analyse cities in which rail transit and urban development are both in a period of rapid growth. The goal of this research is to identify which metro stations in these cities are suitable for TOD improvement and optimization. This article attempts to expand the willingness of residents on the basis of the traditional node-place model as one of the judgment indicators for evaluating whether existing stations and surrounding areas are suitable for TOD improvement. At the same time, traditional statistical analysis is combined with GIS and machine learning technology. Using this method, we propose the TOD improvement-oriented station area classification and identification method based on TOD typology theory. The results show that Ningbo's subway stations can be divided into four categories according to the suitability for TOD improvement, and we selected seven stations suitable for TOD improvement according to the characteristics of the node-place model. The practice in Ningbo has proved that this method is effective for identifying sites suitable for TOD improvement, especially for cities that have recently built subways.