Objective Landscapes along the railway in urban center are important for measuring the perception of cityscape by passengers, which may provide an opportunity for passengers to get to know a city and its culture. Since 2021 in Beijing, the comprehensive improvement of landscape along the railway corridors featuring the integration of safe driving and environmental improvement has been carried out under the background of creating the “most beautiful first impression for people initially entering Beijing”. Despite the increased landscape governance along the railway in Beijing in recent years, the research on landscape along the railway lacks the perception of real scenes from the perspective of passengers.

Methods  This research applies ErgoLAB (Human – Machine – Environment Synchronization Cloud Platform‌) for data collection, stimulus presentation and data analysis. Passengers on moving train with regular speed are tested while they watch outside from window landscape along the Beijing – Qinhuangdao Railway in the central urban area of Beijing. Eye tracker and wearable ear clip sensors are used to obtain the physiological indicators of passengers taking the train. SPSS is adopted to correlate the aforesaid indicators in combination with ErgoLAB data, and landscape characters and types of landscape elements that affect passengers’ perceptual experience is explored.

Results Through analyzing the correlation between landscape characters, eye movement indicator and heart rate indicator, the research mainly obtains the following findings. 1) Artificial elements are more attractive than natural ones. The sequence of fixation duration among all landscape elements is listed as follows: Building > plant > road > railway. In addition, the sequence of people’s attention to architecture from high to low is listed as follows: Public buildings along the water > public buildings with varied skylines > antique style buildings > campus buildings > railway buildings > residential buildings > bungalows. As for the indicators of the first fixation duration and average fixation duration, it looks significantly different (p < 0.01) for the buildings, roads, railroads and plants located in the north side of the railroad. After testing, it is found that first fixation duration looks significantly different between buildings and railroads (p < 0.01), and between buildings and plants (p < 0.05) on the north side of the railroad, and average fixation duration looks significantly different between buildings and plants on the north side of the railroad (p < 0.01); whereas it looks that there is no statistically significant difference between the buildings, roads, railroads and plant elements located in the south side of the railroad in terms of both first fixation duration and average fixation duration. Upon standardization of the fixation durations of various elements on the north and south sides, it is found that there exist significant differences in relative fixation duration between plants, buildings, railroads, and roads on the north and south sides (p < 0.01). 2) Sky openness and skyline richness positively affect the physical activity level of the subjects. The frequency domain indicators LF/HF of heart rate data in spaces at both the north and south sides show a positive correlation with sky openness (north side: correlation value is 0.55, p < 0.05; south side: correlation value is 0.54, p < 0.05). 3) Scenes containing water and plant groups with rich layers, colors and varieties are more attractive to the eye. In general, water bodies may obtain the longest fixation duration, followed by buildings. With a shorter fixation duration overall, are less attractive to people. Compared with single plant, the fixation duration of group plants with rich vertical structures and colorful leaves is longer. 4) In terms of continuous landscape, passengers’ attention is more easily attracted by special landscape nodes. The preference degree on the north side is higher than that on the south side. Specifically, the segments with higher preference degrees within the research area include the train parking area, Qingfeng Park activity field, Beijing East Station, Gaobeidian ancient block, heritage park, and green park.

Conclusion It is suggested to incorporate the landscape along the railway in the central urban area of Beijing into the governance of overlooking landscape. According to the findings, four options to better enhance passengers’ landscape perception are proposed as follows. 1) Enhance the visual appeal of buildings along the railway as key landscape elements, especially their form. 2) Consider the overall visual picture of the landscape along the railway to optimize the urban skyline in important sections along the railway. Continuously renew outdoor spaces along the railway corridor to create more open spaces, even including building contour. 3) Improve passengers’ visual perception with the vegetations planted in front of fence wall or huge structure to protect the railway from being damaged and help trains run safely without experiencing any accident. It is helpful to attract the attention of passengers by increasing the richness of plant interface. 4) Improve the visual quality of special nodes, such as railway stations and their surrounding areas, and extend the residence time of nodes in vision.