Passenger Flow Trend Analysis and Forecasting for Large High-Speed Railway Stations During Holidays: A Case Study for Beijing West Railway Station

Abstract

With the rapid development of China’s social economy and the improvement of people’s living standards, people’s travel demand grows rapidly. As high-speed rail provides fast and comfortable services, the number of high-speed railway passengers is increasing exponentially. During the holidays, huge numbers of railway passengers always bring great pressure and challenge to the transport companies, particularly at large railway stations. Accurately forecasting passengers’ travel demand during holidays is of practical significance to efficiently develop train schedules, formulate effective emergency plans and early warning schemes and guarantee the operating safety. With historical passenger flow data of Beijing West Railway Station during the Spring Festival, we analyse and forecast the future passenger flow using a trend analysis method. The result provides suggestions on organization optimization and improvement for Beijing West Railway Station, which can be used by other railway passenger stations as references.