Complexity Science Hub map shows the most popular modes of transport among commuters in the world’s largest cities.
This project aims to show the number of kilometres travelled on the way to work, depending on the mode of transport chosen. The study looked at the 3 most popular modes of travel. These included travel by car (including taxi and other carriers such as Uber), public transport (metro, buses, trams and others) and active mobility (walking, cycling). The data came from 794 cities in 61 countries around the world. The collected results have been visualised within several groups, divided according to the location or income of the study populations.
The first visualisation prepared allows us to compare our commuting with the inhabitants of the cities included in the study. The data presented by means of Ossan’s triangle allows a number of interesting conclusions to be drawn. The US and Canadian cities are mostly concentrated in an area where almost 100% of residents commute by car. This result should not come as a surprise, especially considering how underdeveloped public transport is in these countries and how strong the car culture is there. Among the cities where active commuting is most popular, one finds mainly Western European cities, with a strong representation of Dutch and German cities, among others. Here, too, this is due to a different approach to transport than in the USA. In Germany and the Netherlands, for example, the network of bicycle paths is well developed, so that residents are keen to use this means of transport, among other things to avoid traffic jams. The last means of travel to work examined is public transport. It is the most popular choice especially in large metropolitan areas with strongly developed public transport. Most people choose public transport in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Seoul or Osaka.
The size of the population in a city has a significant impact on how we commute. From one graph, it can be seen that as the population in cities increases, more people choose to abandon their cars and opt for public transport. This is mainly due to the fact that in larger cities this transport is more extensive and often more diverse, as it can also occur in the form of the metro, which is the domain of larger cities.
