Examining the Effectiveness of Multicenter Strategies in Alleviating Urban Traffic Congestion: Insights from Hefei City, China, Based on Mobile Phone Data

When the single urban spatial structure cannot meet the current operational efficiency requirements of a city, urban planners devise multicenter strategies to achieve the desired goals. Megacities in China and abroad have implemented multicenter strategies to alleviate traffic congestion and the urban heat island effect brought about by urban expansion. However, in particular, the implementation of the multicenter strategy in some cities has led to serious traffic congestion problems, which defeats the very purpose for which this strategy was intended. In light of this, an in-depth analysis of whether each city center can perform the function of alleviating traffic congestion is necessary. Therefore, this paper takes the main urban area of Hefei as the research object, uses the large sample of population commuting data identified by mobile phone signaling, and identifies the employment centers in the main urban area of Hefei through nuclear density and local spatial autocorrelation analyses. The commuting and job–housing balance characteristics of each employment center are analyzed. The matching between the commuting characteristics of each employment center and the ideal commuting model is also tested by comparing the job–housing quantity and quality balance ranges of each employment center to provide a theoretical and methodological basis for the continued implementation of the multicenter strategy and the realization effect of the strategy in large cities. The following results are presented. (1) The distribution of overall employment center levels and interconnections shows a circle structure with strong inner and weak outer links, while the employment density distribution in each direction is relatively balanced without a large bias. (2) Employment centers in urban old city areas usually have a small job–residence quantity balance range, while those in peripheral areas have a large balance range, resulting in noticeable long-distance commuting phenomena. (3) Employment centers with a large job–housing quality balance range are typically distributed in the peripheral regions surrounding the central areas of the main city. These employment centers are often service-oriented and of mixed use, attracting job seekers from a wide surrounding area. (4) The employment centers in the urban periphery are located far from the central employment centers in the middle region of the city, resulting in weak connectivity. Moreover, the redistribution of the employed population from these centers leads to long-distance travel by commuters.