  The unprecedented urbanization in China has dramatically changed the urban
spatial structure of cities. With the proliferation of individual-level
geospatial big data, previous studies have widely used the network abstraction
model to reveal the underlying urban spatial structure. However, the
construction of network abstraction models primarily focuses on the topology of
the road network without considering individual travel flows along with the
road networks. Individual travel flows reflect the urban dynamics, which can
further help understand the underlying spatial structure. This study therefore
aims to reveal the intra-urban spatial structure by integrating the road
network abstraction model and individual travel flows. To achieve this goal, we
1) quantify the spatial interaction relatedness of road segments based on the
Word2Vec model using large volumes of taxi trip data, then 2) characterize the
road abstraction network model according to the identified spatial interaction
relatedness, and 3) implement a community detection algorithm to reveal
sub-regions of a city. Our results reveal three levels of hierarchical spatial
structures in the Wuhan metropolitan area. This study provides a data-driven
approach to the investigation of urban spatial structure via identifying
traffic interaction patterns on the road network, offering insights to urban
planning practice and transportation management.
