Research Note: Optimising Urban Furniture in External Space of Subway Stations in China

Abstract

With the Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) model developing in urban construction in China, the contradiction between limited space resources outside subway stations and the enormous demands of stakeholders has become more prominent. The present research on urban furniture mainly focused on the underground space system and the development of surrounding industries. Still, there was a lack of in-depth discussion on the external space of subway stations. This research aims to explore the spatio-temporal differences of activities in the external space of the subway station and put forward the corresponding optimising strategies of urban furniture. The external space of Wushan station in Metro Line 3 in Guangzhou was selected as the research area to investigate and analyse human activities and their demands through the PSPL Survey. It was found that there were significant peaks of human flow on weekdays and weekends separately. On weekdays, the peak was mainly concentrated in the morning and evening. At the same time, that was slightly behind, concentrated primarily on the weekend meal times and apparent differences in the routes of human flow, resulting in different stakeholders having demanded seats. Therefore, this paper proposed foldable and modular design strategies. It could provide a reference for optimising public facilities in the same type of space and a research basis for urban space renewal and rail traffic optimisation.