Abstract
In subway stations, bottlenecks are the narrowed areas that reduce pedestrian flows in channels. Because pedestrians at bottlenecks are forced to dense together, bottlenecks decrease flow efficiency and pedestrians’ transfer comfort and may trigger serious crowd disasters such as trampling. This study used pedestrian experiments to investigate the methods of optimizing pedestrian traffic at bottlenecks of subway stations. Three optimization measures were proposed and evaluated by analyzing the characteristics of pedestrian flows, including efficiency, smoothness, and security. In this paper, setting the rear sides of the bottleneck entrance as straight and surface funnel shapes is called straight funnel shape and surface funnel shape, respectively. Setting a column at a bottleneck is called the column obstacle. The results showed that when efficiency or security come first, a column on the left is recommended; when comfort comes first, a concave funnel is recommended; when comprehensiveness is prioritized, a column on the left is recommended. Moreover, the larger the volume, the optimization is more obvious. Although many bottlenecks cannot be prevented when subway stations are constructed, the proposed optimization measures may help ease their adverse effects by improving facility efficiency, smoothness, and security, and by providing recommendations for designing and managing subway stations.
Highlights
In Beijing, the subway has been the primary type of public transportation, accounting for 45% of public transport in 2014 and carrying more than 11 million passengers daily on average [1]
This study explores adding various measures at bottlenecks
Different measures at different volumes were investigated with pedestrian experiments which were conducted under controllable circumstances, strongly purpose-oriented, and could change between different optimization measures
Summary
In Beijing, the subway has been the primary type of public transportation, accounting for 45% of public transport in 2014 and carrying more than 11 million passengers daily on average [1]. This study investigates the optimization methods for pedestrian flows at bottlenecks of subway stations. Bolay suggested that a funnel-shaped construction could improve pedestrian flow at bottlenecks [3]. Guo proposed a revised social force model to simulate the pedestrian counter flow through a bottleneck. Li and Han proposed a pedestrian evacuation simulation model based on extended cellular automata to study pedestrian behavior effects at bottlenecks. A new study by Sun [16] found that the funnel shape effectively improves traffic efficiency at bottlenecks, especially under large volumes. This study used pedestrian experiments to explore the feasibility and effects of optimization measures at bottlenecks of subway stations.
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