Boarding and Alighting Behavior of Public Transport Passengers

Vehicle dwell time is an important determinant of the system performance and passenger service quality of various public transport modes. In this contribution, we focus on reviewing existing literature related to vehicle dwell times and the boarding and alighting behavior of public transport passengers. Passenger boarding and alighting data collected at two Dutch railway stations is analyzed in this paper to assess related findings reported in literature. To accurately predict vehicle dwell times, insights into determinants of both boarding/alighting times and spatial distributions of passengers over platforms are critical. In this paper, we divide those factors into four groups: passenger characteristics, platform layout, vehicle design, and crowding effects. Passenger related factors include direction of movement (boarding or alighting), personal characteristics (e.g. age, gender, and physical fitness), luggage load, passenger discipline (e.g. queuing or crowding), and travel conditions (e.g. traveling stress, time of day, climate and weather, and on-board fare collection). Platform access designs are important determinants of the spatial distributions of waiting and boarding passengers over platforms. Both entrance and interior designs of public transport vehicles influence boarding and alighting performances. Finally, crowding could cause retarding effects on dwell processes. Based on empirical findings, a marginal boarding time model is proposed to describe the non-linear relationship between boarding times and vehicle densities. With respect to vehicle dwell time predictions, two different modeling approaches are discussed: the flow approach and the regression dwell time modeling approach.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Lee, Yu-chen
  • Daamen, Winnie
  • Wiggenraad, Paul
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 86th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2007-1-21 to 2007-1-25
• Date: 2007

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: CD-ROM
• Features: Figures; Photos; References; Tables;
• Monograph Title: TRB 86th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers CD-ROM

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Boarding and alighting; Dwell time; Fare collection; Mode choice; Public transit; Rail transit stations; Railroad transportation; Railroads; Transit operating agencies; Transportation modes
• Subject Areas: Finance; Passenger Transportation; Public Transportation; Railroads; Society;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01047642
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 07-1720
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: May 7 2007 8:27AM