Analysis on the imbalance of population flow network during the Spring Festival travel rush in China in 2015

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 16; no. 4; p. e0249520
• Main Authors: Gao, Yanpeng, Xu, Xiaofei, Wei, Ye
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 05-04-2021; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Algorithms; Big Data; Census; Census of Population; Computer and Information Sciences; Distribution; Earth Sciences; Economic development; Economic growth; Economic models; Festivals; People and Places; Population; Population distribution; Regional development; Regions; Research and Analysis Methods; Social aspects; Social Sciences; Travel; China
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0249520

This paper analyzes the imbalance of interprovincial population flow during the Spring Festival travel rush in China, using big data obtained through Baidu Migration, in terms of population flow during the festival and the normalized unbalanced coefficients of edge and node method for analysis, from which the following findings emerge: (1). The imbalance in population flow network during the Spring Festival travel rush is significant, with unbalanced coefficients and relevant frequencies of the population flow network in the Eastern and Western Regions being significantly higher than in other regions. The unbalanced coefficients in the Central Region are lower, followed by corresponding frequencies, while the unbalanced coefficients in the Northeast Region are evenly distributed with the lowest frequencies. The population flow toward the West and Northwest are relatively concentrated, while the population flow toward the South and Southwest are relatively scattered. (2). The regional imbalance during the Spring Festival travel rush has characteristics of spatial agglomeration, where a strongly-connected Southeast Subsystem and a weakly-connected Western Subsystem are formed; there is a significant leverage effect in Guangdong Province, which greatly affects the regional imbalance. Three characteristics emerge in the distribution of regional population flow-the outflow, inflow, and outflow along the Eastern, Central and Western strips/lines, respectively. The paper emphasizes the importance of researching imbalance issues, clarifies the difference between the imbalance of the population flow network and the imbalance involved in previous population research fields, and discusses the Spring Festival Effect in terms of population flow and deficiencies in research.