Reducing Bidirectional Pedestrian Conflict Based on Lane Formation Phenomenon in Subway Corridors

Jing Qiao,Shi Qiu,Jian Rong,Xiaoming Liu,Lishan Sun

doi:10.7307/ptt.v29i5.2168

Jing Qiao, Shi Qiu + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.7307/ptt.v29i5.2168

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Abstract

With the rapid increase of the subway passenger volume, the conflict among passengers emerges as a significant issue which affects subway serviceability, especially in the bidirectional flow. The aim of this study is to explore the characteristics of the bidirectional flow of pedestrians in a subway corridor. Pedestrian experiments were conducted to investigate microscopic characteristics of the pedestrian flow. It was found that the microscopic characteristics, including the walking speed and turning angle, were time-dependent and had a generalized trend with time. It was also found that different pedestrian volumes affected the microscopic characteristics. Based on the trend of the microscopic characteristics, the lane formation phenomenon was observed and quantitatively studied, identifying three phases: conflict phase, lane formation phase, and steady lane phase. To alleviate the bidirectional pedestrian conflict, additional pedestrian experiments for the countermeasure of adding separating strap in the corridor, which was based on the lane formation analysis, was conducted. The effectiveness of the countermeasure was demonstrated through a before-and-after comparison. The results showed that adding the separation between the adjacent lanes had the best performance in reducing the conflicts. The results would provide a rationale for subway managers in optimizing the corridor bidirectional pedestrian flow.

Highlights

With the massive construction and new opening to traffic, the average daily passenger traffic (ADPT) of the subway has increased quickly, especially in Beijing, and has exceeded 10 million since 2013 [1]
After lane formation was recognized in bidirectional flow [4, 8, 20], literature qualitatively explored the process of lane formation including conflict, following effect [39] and evasive effect [41, 42]
This study explored the characteristics and countermeasures of the bidirectional pedestrian flow of 1:1 flow ratio in subway corridor

Summary

Introduction

With the massive construction and new opening to traffic, the average daily passenger traffic (ADPT) of the subway has increased quickly, especially in Beijing, and has exceeded 10 million since 2013 [1]. Pedestrian flows can be observed in many traffic systems and there appear spatial patterns characterized in common [2,3]. The analysis of pedestrian flow is fundamental in massive transit planning, facility design, and operations management. The study of pedestrian traffic was initiated in the 1950s, which was later than the first research of auto traffic, it has developed fast over the recent years with the advance of modern data collection technologies [4,5,6,7,8]

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