Evaluating the impact of new lines on entrance/exit passenger flow of adjacent existing stations in urban rail transit system

Abstract

Abstract With the rapid development of urban rail transit (URT) system, many new lines are put into operation. The change of network topology and the improvement of accessibility cause obvious changes in URT passenger flow characteristics, especially for the entrance/exit passenger flow of existing stations adjacent to new lines. Based on entrance/exit flow component analysis, entrance/exit passenger flow include three parts: basic passenger flow, which is related to the natural growth of entrance/exit passenger flow due to socioeconomic development; diverted passenger flow and induced passenger flow, which are caused by new lines. Herein, Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average models are established to analyze the basic passenger flow and the diverted passenger flow is discussed through passenger-attracting scope overlap indicator. As for induced passenger flow, accessibility indicator is proposed using utility theory to capture passenger's short term welfare change due to new lines. Further, based on these indicators, a relation model is developed to analyze the diverted and induced impact of new lines on existing stations’ passenger flow. Finally, based on time series passenger flow data of Guangzhou Metro during the period 2011-2014, the impact of new lines is evaluated. The results show that new URT lines have different effects on different stations’ entrance/exit passenger flow. New transfer stations are usually induced more passengers than other existing stations, and stations in existing lines, which are parallel with new lines, are more likely to be diverted passengers to new stations. Besides, the impact of new lines on existing stations’ passenger flow varies with time. The impact of new lines usually reaches a peak in a few months after the opening of new lines.