Analyzing the Effect of Crowds on Passenger Behavior Inside Urban Trains through Laboratory Experiments—A Pilot Study

Abstract

The objective is to study the distribution of passengers inside urban trains for different levels of crowding. The study is carried out through the observation of videos made by laboratory experiments in which a mock-up of a carriage represented the boarding and alighting process. The Fruin’s Level of Service (LOS) was adopted, but with a different approach, in which the train is divided into five zones (central hall, central aisle, side aisle, central seats and side seats). The experiments are based on the behavior of passengers in the London Underground; however, this study could be expanded to any conventional rail or LRT system. For the laboratory experiments, it is proposed to build a metro carriage and a corresponding platform section, and the scenarios will include different levels of crowding of passengers boarding and alighting to produce a variation in the density on the platform. According to the crowding level, the results allow obtaining the distribution and movements generated by passengers in the five zones for different instants of time during the process of boarding and alighting. It is observed that passengers are distributed according to safety and efficiency conditions. For example, passengers tried to avoid contact with each other unless it is inevitable. In relation to comfort, the seats of the carriage are always used even if there is a low level of crowding. If the crowding level increases, the boarding and alighting time go up. In addition, passengers will spend one or two seconds more if the “let’s get off before getting on the carriage” behavior is breached. This kind of experiment can be used in further research as a way to test “what-if” scenarios using this new method of discretization of the space inside the train, which cannot be tested in existing stations due to restrictions such as the weather, variability of the train frequency, current design of the trains, among others. New experiments are necessary for future research to include other types of passengers such as people with disabilities or reduced mobility.

The Effect of Seat Layout on the Interaction of Passengers Inside the Train Carriage: An Experimental Approach for Urban Services

“…In other words, passengers in urban services use the metro to move a few stations to their destination. Therefore, they prefer to stay in the central hall even if they have more space to move through the corridors of the train carriage, which is concordance with [30].…”

“…Still, passengers used the seats. Therefore, even if trains have a new seat layout configuration, most passengers will still try to accommodate them by using the seats to obtain a comfortable and safe space inside the train, which is an additional factor that could be complemented by previous studies [30].…”

“…These elements have little impact on the boarding and alighting time but change the behavior of passengers as they know where the doors are located and, therefore, stay at the sides of the train doors rather than in front of them [27,28]. Moreover, the interactions between passengers boarding and alighting are affected by the ratio between them (e.g., the number of passengers boarding divided by those who are alighting), and therefore, real-time crowding information is needed to generate an adequate distribution of passengers at the platform and inside the train [29,30].…”

“…Occupation of seats: This variable is defined as the ratio between the number of seats occupied inside the train and the total number of seats inside the train [%]. For example, if all seats are occupied inside the train, this ratio equals 100% [30].…”

“…These variables were collected using a tracking tool based on a previous study [30]. The detection considered the counting of passengers and their trajectories using YOLO based on the algorithm reported in [43].…”