Short-Term Passenger Flow Prediction in Urban Rail Transit based on Hybrid Deep Learning Models

Abstract

Urban rail transit systems are essential for efficient, reliable, and environmentally friendly transportation in modern cities. Correct and effective short-term passenger flow prediction is crucial for optimizing operational efficiency, enhancing service quality, and ensuring passenger safety. Traditional prediction methods often fail to capture the complex, non-linear, and dynamic patterns in urban rail transit systems. This study uses a hybrid deep learning model combining Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks to predict short-term passenger flow in urban rail transit. By integrating the strengths of CNN in capturing spatial features and LSTM in modeling temporal dependencies, the hybrid model aims to improve prediction accuracy. Using historical data from Hangzhou Metro, the study demonstrates the model's effectiveness in predicting passenger flow, which reasonably has a good fit. Additionally, models with different convolutional layers show different performances. These improved predictions offer valuable insights for transit authorities, enabling them to make more informed decisions regarding train scheduling, resource allocation, and emergency response planning. By anticipating passenger demand more accurately, authorities can optimize the deployment of trains, reduce waiting times, enhance passenger comfort, and improve overall service reliability.