Identification of social groups and waiting pedestrians at railway platforms using trajectory data

Abstract

To investigate the impact of social groups on waiting behaviour of passengers at railway platforms a method to identify social groups through the monitoring of distances between pedestrians and the stability of those distances over time is introduced. The method allows the recognition of groups using trajectories only and thus opens up the possibility of studying crowds in public places without constrains caused by privacy protection issues. Trajectories from a railway platform in Switzerland were used to analyse the waiting behaviour of passengers in dependence of waiting time as well as the size of social groups. The analysis of the trajectories shows that the portion of passengers travelling in groups reaches up to 10% during the week and increases to 20% on the weekends. 60% of the groups were pairs, larger groups were less frequent. With increasing group size, the mean speed of the members decreases. Individuals and pairs often choose waiting spots at the sides of the stairs and in vicinity of obstacles, while larger groups wait close to the platform entries. The results indicate that passengers choose waiting places according to the following criteria and ranking: shortest ways, direction of the next intended action, undisturbed places and ensured communication. While individual passengers often wait in places where they are undisturbed and do not hinder others, the dominating comfort criterion for groups is to ensure communication. The results regarding space requirements of waiting passengers could be used for different applications. E.g. to enhance the level of service concept assessing the comfort of different types of users, to avoid temporary bottlenecks to improve the boarding and alighting process or to increase the robustness of the performance of railway platforms during peak loads by optimising the pedestrian distribution.

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

“…Recent studies have shown the distribution of passengers and their interaction based on variables such as queue length at the door, number of people inside the carriage, travel distance, and comfort of passengers [31]. The space of passengers and the occupation inside the train are reported in [32,33], which are essential factors that affect the interaction of passengers boarding or alighting. The characteristics of passengers are also studied in [34] utilizing laboratory experiments.…”

Waiting in crowded places: influence of number of pedestrians, waiting time and obstacles

“…Passengers travelling in social groups often choose waiting places that are wide enough for the whole group to fit and ensure the groups communication. This is often the case in areas directly in front of the entrances, leading to possible bottlenecks and congestion [ 26 ]. Passengers with short head time to the expected train arrival stand in region close to the entrances, while passengers with longer waiting times prefer undisturbed spaces and even walk to farther platform areas or use the rearward sides of stairways [ 26 ].…”

“…This is often the case in areas directly in front of the entrances, leading to possible bottlenecks and congestion [ 26 ]. Passengers with short head time to the expected train arrival stand in region close to the entrances, while passengers with longer waiting times prefer undisturbed spaces and even walk to farther platform areas or use the rearward sides of stairways [ 26 ]. Commuters often develop individual strategies in order to minimize the distance to the exits at their destination [ 27 ].…”