Abstract
Development of construction and operation of subway rail transit system in populated cities of middle- and high-income countries along with the increasing population of its users, have exacerbated the safety problems of the users against incidents and emergencies in subway stations. Although subway emergency evacuation is considered by the governments and subway network organizations as a critical task related to passengers' safety at the time of emergency, the risk of mass evacuation in station is undeniable. The main objective of this study is to identify factors affecting safe evacuation of the population from subway station and to propose the strategies for addressing them based on experiences or opinions of stakeholders in Tehran Subways, Iran. This is a qualitative study that was conducted between January 2017 and December 2018, in which a semi-structured interview was conducted for 17 participants among the senior managers, executive managers, subway station operations staff, and subway passengers in Tehran subway stations, in the Capital of Iran. In order to analyze the data of this qualitative study, the Graneheim and Lundman method was used and manifested content analysis approach was employed. Based on the findings of this study, the factors affecting safe evacuation of the population from subways station were identified in four main categories covering passengers, organization, communications, and environment. Then the main categories of "culture, interaction and cooperation of passengers", "correct and timely decision-making", "notification", and "location of emergency evacuation" were emerged as safe emergency evacuation challenges and the most important findings of this study; and strategies were proposed to improve the safety of passengers at emergency evacuation of subway stations. In the present study, the lack of safe approach to improving passengers' safety in the development plan of Tehran subway rail transit network is a major concern for managers and operations staff. Therefore, changing the attitude of policy makers from focusing on the quantitative development of passenger transportation services to improving safety and then the quality of passengers' trip is taken into account as an urgent need to improve the safety of subway passengers.
Highlights
P opulation growth as well as increasing demand for subway urban rail transit network throughout the world have changed the subway stations to one of the crowded public places
The findings of other studies about the effect of the passengers' behavior on the efficiency of emergency evacuation of subway stations have shown that the spread of panic among passengers could cause secondary incidents, which was consistent with our findings
The participants in this study believed that improving the culture, effective interaction and cooperation of the passengers in an emergency evacuation was an affecting factor in safe evacuation of the stations
Summary
P opulation growth as well as increasing demand for subway urban rail transit network throughout the world have changed the subway stations to one of the crowded public places. Development of construction and operation of subway rail transit system in populated cities of middle- and high-income countries along with the increasing population of its users, have exacerbated the safety problems of the users against incidents and emergencies in subway stations. The main objective of this study is to identify factors affecting safe evacuation of the population from subway station and to propose the strategies for addressing them based on experiences or opinions of stakeholders in Tehran Subways, Iran. Results: Based on the findings of this study, the factors affecting safe evacuation of the population from subways station were identified in four main categories covering passengers, organization, communications, and environment. Conclusions: In the present study, the lack of safe approach to improving passengers' safety in the development plan of Tehran subway rail transit network is a major concern for managers and operations staff. Changing the attitude of policy makers from focusing on the quantitative development of passenger transportation services to improving safety and the quality of passengers' trip is taken into account as an urgent need to improve the safety of subway passengers
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