Determination of the Peak Hour Ridership of Metro Stations in Xi’an, China Using Geographically-Weighted Regression

Lijie Yu,Kuanmin Chen,Yarong Cong

doi:10.3390/su12062255

Abstract

The ridership of a metro station during a city’s peak hour is not always the same as that during the station’s own peak hour. To investigate this inconsistency, this study introduces the peak deviation coefficient to describe this phenomenon. Data from 88 metro stations in Xi’an, China, are used to analyze the peak deviation coefficient based on the geographically weighted regression model. The results demonstrate that when the land around a metro station is mainly land for work, primary and middle schools, and residences, its station’s peak hour is consistent with the city’s peak hour. Additionally, the station’s peak hour is more likely to deviate from the city’s peak hour for suburban stations. There are two ridership options when designing stations, namely the extra peak hour ridership during a city’s peak hour and that during a station’s peak hour, and the larger of the two is used to design metro stations. The mixed land use ratio must be considered in urban land use planning, because although non-commuting land can mitigate the traffic pressure of a city’s peak hour, it may cause the deviation of the station’s peak hours from that of the city.

Highlights

According to the Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual, the calculation procedure for a desired station’s platform size includes choosing the corresponding average number of passengers, adjusting for passenger characteristics as appropriate, estimating the maximum passenger demand for the platform at a given time, and calculating the required waiting space by multiplying the average space per person by the maximum passenger demand [1]
In China, the Code for Design of Metro states that the capacity of a metro station must be determined by the extra peak hour passenger flow, which is the predicted peak hour passenger flow multiplied by the extra peak hour factor, which is between 1.1 and 1.4 [2]
With regard to the extra peak hour factor, this paper introduces the peak deviation coefficient (PDC), which is the ratio between the predicted ridership of a metro station during its peak hour and the predicted ridership of this metro station during the city’s peak hour

Summary

Introduction

According to the Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual, the calculation procedure for a desired station’s platform size includes choosing the corresponding average number of passengers, adjusting for passenger characteristics as appropriate, estimating the maximum passenger demand for the platform at a given time, and calculating the required waiting space by multiplying the average space per person by the maximum passenger demand [1]. Estimating the maximum passenger demand for a platform at a given time is one of the most important steps for station design. The predicted ridership of a station is always in the city’s peak hour, and it determines the station design [7]. Designers are clearly biased toward adopting station ridership during the city’s (and not the station’s) peak hours. This will increase the difficulty of both passenger flow forecasting in the planning stage and train departure intervals and station management in the operation stage. Because there is only one train departure interval in a period of time in a section of a metro line, if a station’s peak hour is different from those of other stations, the train departure interval will be greater in this station‘s peak hour, and passengers will pile up

Objectives

Methods

Results