01663667

Component

As passenger demand in rail transit systems increases, major railway stations face serious capacity issues for trains and passengers. Simulation tools have proven effective in analyzing complex station areas. Previous research in simulation methods, however, has only focused on either train or pedestrian movements, while their interaction has hardly been properly captured. An integrated crowd and transit simulation platform – Nexus – was applied to study the impact of pedestrian and train movements on system performance of a complex railway station – Toronto’s Union Station. Extensive data were collected, railway and pedestrian models were constructed with OpenTrack and MassMotion, and finally integrated within Nexus. A 9% drop in on-time performance was observed and passengers’ average duration at LOS F almost tripled with the increase of train and passenger volumes beyond certain levels. Both length and variation of dwell time due to pedestrian movement were recognized as the main factors of performance deterioration, especially when the system approaches capacity. The simulation model helped identify locations where passengers experienced severe overcrowding, which would not be obtainable from mathematical dwell time models. This paper reports on the development of each simulation tool and model results of the scenario tests performed.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AP045 Standing Committee on Passenger Intermodal Facilities.

18-05773

English

8p

2018

Transportation Research Board 97th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; Maps; References

Case studies; Crowds; Pedestrian traffic; Railroad stations; Simulation

Toronto Union Station

Toronto (Canada)

Operations and Traffic Management; Public Transportation; Railroads

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2018 Paper #18-05773

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Jan 8 2018 11:29AM