Abstract
Passenger’s alighting and boarding movement is one important component of pedestrian flow in metro stations, which has impacts on the pedestrian distribution as well as train dwell time. Thus, it is worth exploring when studying the pedestrian flow in metro stations. In this study, two field surveys were respectively performed in two metro stations in Hong Kong and mainland China at non-peak hours to observe passenger’s alighting and boarding characteristics and collect sample data. One commonly existing phenomenon was found that boarding passengers started to get aboard even when there were alighting passengers still inside the metro carriage. This is defined as passengers’ non-compliance behaviors in this study. Critical time indicators were defined to measure the alighting and boarding efficiency. The effects on the alighting and boarding process were analyzed based on field survey data. It was found that the level of passenger’s non-compliance behaviors was basically proportional to the simultaneous alighting and boarding time.Then a microscopic pedestrian simulation model based on the Social Force Model was proposed to simulate the passengers’ alighting and boarding patterns at the metro platform. Pedestrian logic was specified for all types of passengers to make them move according to specific processes and rules during the alighting and boarding process. The verification result showed the good applicability of the proposed model to simulate the actual situation. Several simulation tests were further conducted to explore the impacts that passengers’ non-compliance behaviors have on the alighting and boarding efficiency in different passenger volume conditions. The simulation result showed that higher level of passengers’ non-compliance behaviors lead to longer passenger’s alighting duration and boarding duration, but the influence on the overall transaction time was related to different passenger volume conditions. Thus, the metro station could apply different alighting and boarding rules in different passenger volume conditions to increase alighting and boarding efficiency.
Then a typical phenomenon in the alighting and boarding process was studied in this thesis, in which some passengers are eager to get aboard and give pressure to the front passengers to move forward. An agent-based microscopic simulation model called CityFlow-T was thus proposed to explore the effects of passengers’ eagerness to get aboard on the alighting and boarding efficiency. Pedestrians’ movement in CityFlow-T would be affected by the pressure from latter pedestrians, and all pedestrians follow the specified logic to move with the most suitable direction and speed. The critical model parameter analysis was conducted by a simulation of pedestrians going through a bottleneck and the result was compared with the existing pedestrian experiment data. The alighting and boarding process with passengers’ eagerness to get aboard was further simulated. It is found that passengers’ eagerness to get aboard has different effects on the alighting and boarding efficiency if the simultaneous alighting and boarding movement is existing.
Then the proposed model CityFlow-T was used to perform simulations to explore the effects of metro carriage’s interior design on the alighting and boarding process, especially for different layouts of seats and vertical handrails. The key point was to find better layouts of seats and vertical handrails to increase the alighting and boarding efficiency while keeping their original service functions. A simulation verification test was performed to adjust the key parameters, and the result showed that this model could well simulate the actual alighting and boarding process with appropriate parameters. Then different scenarios of seats and vertical handrails were designed for further simulation and analysis. It could conclude that the physical obstacles inside the carriage, such as seats and vertical handrails, are better to be equipped far from the carriage door to increase passengers’ alighting and boarding efficiency. Seats and vertical handrails near the door would hinder the alighting and boarding passenger flow and cause longer transaction time.
This study proposed effective tools to simulate passengers’ alighting and boarding process and reflect passengers’ complex characteristics in different environment. The data and results of this research could be further used to predict train dwell time at one station and provide references for verification and validation of other pedestrian models and simulations. Suggestions are given to metro management people and designers to better manage and improve passengers’ alighting and boarding process.
| Date of Award | 3 Aug 2020 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | Siu Ming LO (Supervisor) |