Liu Xianteng1, Chen Xueming2, Zhou Jiangping3
1. Shanghai Urban and Planning and Design Research Institute, Shanghai 200040, China; 2. Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou Jiangsu 215123, China; 3. University of Hongkong, Hongkong 999077, China

Abstract： Excess commuting is an analytical framework for assessing the jobs-housing spatial relationship and commuting efficiency. This paper first reviews the origin and evolution of the concept of excess commuting in the past three decades, and then highlights its strength and weakness when applied to evaluate commuting efficiency. By placing Bertaud’s commuting model and its spatial structure in Brotchie’s Triangle Model, the paper discusses various evolution directions caused by the change of jobs-housing spatial relationship. The paper also analyzes the potentials of excess commuting in assessing urban jobs-housing balance and commuting efficiency. The paper con-cludes that the excess commuting framework is an important analysis tool for studying the transformation of urban spatial form and evaluating the optimization of spatial structure. DOI: 10.13813/j.cn11-5141/u.2018.0202-en

Keywords： jobs- housing spatial relationship; excess commuting; commuting efficiency; urban form and structure