Capacity Assessment of Railway Stations: A Case of Addis Ababa Light Rail's Menilik Square Station.

Abstract

Addis Ababa, capital city of Ethiopia, is experiencing a population boom and rapid urbanization. Passenger demand on the Addis Ababa Light Rail Train (AALRT) in recent years has not been matched by the equivalent available capacity, thus maintaining system performance is an increasing challenge. The objective of this paper was to assess the performance of Menilik Square LRT Station in terms of the number of passengers boarding the train mainly during peak hours. Capacity utilization of the rolling stock at the station in terms of passengers carried, number of trains that arrive at the station during peak hours and passenger volumes per train during peak hours has been analyzed. Data collected from the AALRT authority office for the month of November 2019 has been used to conduct the analysis. It has been discovered that there is overcapacity utilization during peak hours with 400 excess passengers, for a design capacity of 8000 passengers. Finally, it is recommended to minimize the dwell time at the station and minimize the headway between the trains to increase the throughput at the station thus minimizing overloads per train.