Crowding in Metro Stations: Passenger Flow Analysis and Simulation

The public mass rail transit industry is growing at an unbelievable speed in many large cities in Asia. How to provide a safe and comfortable travelling environment for passengers is attracting more and more attentions from the rail industry practitioners as well as the researchers. However, to have a detailed analysis of the passenger flow and assess the crowdedness level in a metro station is still a great challenge because of the complexity of the passenger behaviors and the difficulty to collect enough passenger flow data. This paper presents a simulation approach for detailed analysis of passenger flows and assessing the crowdedness level of metro stations based on field surveys. The passenger flow data, including the characteristics of passengers, the flow rate at peak hours as well as the passenger behaviors inside the stations are collected by field surveys. The passenger flow pattern of a station can be identified and represented as a network structure based on the survey results. An agent-based pedestrian flow simulation model is used for the assessment of the crowdedness level of the existing and newly proposed layout of stations. Besides the pedestrian movement behaviors and passenger behaviors such as queuing up at a facility or waiting at the waiting area are also considered in the model. The simulation results can be used for extracting data on station crowdedness level indicators such as the density distributions which are helpful for assessing the passenger flow situations in a metro station.

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AP045 Intermodal Transfer Facilities.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Liu, Shaobo
  • Lo, S M
  • Wang, W L
  • Ma, J
  • Yuen, J K K
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 92nd Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2013-1-13 to 2013-1-17
• Date: 2013

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 11p
• Monograph Title: TRB 92nd Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Crowds; Passengers; Pedestrian flow; Rail transit stations; Simulation; Surveys
• Uncontrolled Terms: Passenger flow
• Geographic Terms: Asia
• Subject Areas: Passenger Transportation; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01475710
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 13-3357
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Mar 15 2013 9:48AM