The number of passenger travelling by railway has increased significantly in last two decades due to rapid urbanization. The passengers are in high density within the station premises during the operation time particularly during arrival and departure of trains at urban transit stations. Pedestrian flow reaches to peak level instantaneously causing sudden change in the pedestrian behavior and may lead to unsafe pedestrian movement. The study of pedestrian flow in such situation calls for more attention in view of the likely gravity of the situation turning adverse. Hence, for the efficient design as well as effective operation, modeling of the pedestrian flow for such situation is necessary to gain important insight into the pedestrian behavior. This paper is focused on pedestrian traffic movement on stairways at busy suburban railway station. Video-graphic data is collected at two stairways at Dadar suburban train station in Mumbai. Extracted data of 1-minutes interval is used to develop Speed-Density and Flow-Density relationships for different stairways. Critical aspects of the pedestrian flow behavior observed through the models are compared with pedestrian flow characteristics and walking behavior reported in earlier studies. The analysis presented in this paper can be used as a base to understand the peculiarity of pedestrian characteristics; specifically urban commuters and can become a useful reference for future pedestrian flow study in Indian metropolitan context.
Free speed, the key parameter in the modelling of pedestrian flow, is the speed that a pedestrian desires to walk at. In this study free speed of pedestrians considering characteristics such as age, gender, and with or without luggage in ascending and descending stairways located on platforms in suburban and intercity railway stations was examined. Due to difficulty in observing free speed directly, an approach for developing distributions of speeds at varying levels of pedestrian density is proposed to estimate free speed precisely. The outcome of this study may be useful for planning, design and operation of the pedestrian facility.Keywords: Free speed, pedestrian flow, rail transit station, stairway.WALKING speed is an important factor in pedestrian studies, which helps in determining the comfort level for the given facility. Many researchers agree that pedestrian speed differs among pedestrians [1][2][3] . This is because of the characteristics of pedestrians, the direction of movement, and characteristics of pedestrian facility (type and physical characteristics such as length, width, height, slope, number of steps in a single flight and dimension of steps in case of a stairway), weather and other external conditions. However, these factors do not influence in the case of high dense flow, where pedestrians are walking closely. Free speed is a speed at which pedestrians walk when not hindered by other pedestrians or by external factors 3 . Hence, free speed is an important criterion to understand individual behaviour. However, it is difficult to measure free speed of a pedestrian from the data since an enumerator does not identify whether a pedestrian walks at his/her free speed. Free speed and its distributions are an important input for many traffic flow models, such as developing a speed-flow plot.Free speeds are also an important aspect from the viewpoint of design of walking facilities and the corresponding schedule of public transport services, which affect directly the overall efficiency of the system. Many researchers have studied the performance of pedestrian walking speed at different facilities. However, very few studies have been undertaken at transit stations, where pedestrian flow dynamics depend largely on the schedule of the train. This becomes imperative particularly during peak periods as there can be a large number of passengers in a short time interval. Generally, it is expected that arrival of trains is likely to make the gathering and dispersion of pedestrians efficient. It also facilitates easy transfer of pedestrians on other platforms, for catching the next train, through good transfer facilities. As discussed, many factors make a significant contribution to deciding free-flow movements of a pedestrian. These factors include age, gender, the baggage carried by a pedestrian and the walkability of a facility 4 , the gradient or roughness of surface 5 , time of day 6 and type of walking facility 2 . The most important factor governing pedestrian movement on a public transport facility i...
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