The Impact of Urban Rail Boarding and Alighting Factors

As passenger railway demand has increased, this has put increasing pressure on capacity. In urban areas, railway line capacity is determined by station stops, and the movement of passengers on and off trains at stations is therefore critical. Understanding and quantifying the factors which determine boarding and alighting rates is essential if railways are to manage these issues appropriately. Although a number of individual researchers have examined passenger flow rates in particular conditions, this study has had access to an international dataset of passenger movements at almost 130 locations. Collection of background information on train and platform characteristics has supported data on passenger flow to provide 17 possible independent variables. Simple regressions have limitations of correlation and choice of functional form which have been overcome in this work by using a multivariate fractional function approach. This has enabled the derivation of statistically-significant parameters to explain passenger boarding and alighting, with seven variables providing the vast majority of explanatory power. However, although it is still believed to be an important factor, door width was not one of the isolated variables, being subject to a threshold width value which makes the identification of an appropriate functional form very difficult.

• 
• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AP015 Transit Capacity and Quality of Service. Alternate tltle: Impact of Urban Rail Boarding and Alighting Factors
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Harris, Nigel G
  • Graham, Daniel J
  • Anderson, Richard J
  • Li, Haojie
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 93rd Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC
  • Date: 2014-1-12 to 2014-1-16
• Date: 2014

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Appendices; Figures; Photos; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 13p
• Monograph Title: TRB 93rd Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Boarding and alighting; Passengers; Railroad stations; Railroad transportation; Urban transit
• Subject Areas: Operations and Traffic Management; Public Transportation; Railroads; I73: Traffic Control;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01520002
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 14-2750
• Files: PRP, TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Mar 26 2014 10:13AM