Are commuting patterns a good indicator of urban spatial structure?

Commuting patterns can be recognized by examining urban spatial structure. The latter can also be identified through the investigation of the former. This paper examines how well commuting patterns reflect the corresponding urban spatial structure. For this purpose, locational variables for commuting trip origin and destination are derived and included in an adjusted gravity model. The sign and the magnitude of the coefficients of those variables are interpreted along with the associated urban spatial structure. For a more formal comparison, urban density functions are estimated. Commuting data from the Seoul Metropolitan Region in 1987, 1990, and 1995 are used for an empirical analysis. The result shows that the distribution of employment is consistent between the spatial structure projected from the commuting patterns and the urban density distribution, while the distribution of employed residents is not, suggesting that the latter case should be interpreted with more caution.