Abstract
Insufficient attention has been paid to how subway cabins are used by passengers and especially the distribution of passengers and occupancy of facilities. In this study, passengers were observed in 133 sections from the beginning to the end of the early peak of Chengdu Metro in the working days. The differences in occupancy behaviors of passengers to different areas, seats, and standing auxiliary facilities in the cabin were analyzed by the nonparametric test. The occupancy curve was fitted by the least square method from the minimum to the maximum load factor, and the prediction and explanatory model for the use of cabin was established. As expected, the distribution of passengers in the cabin is uneven. The highest occupancy rate has been maintained at the cabin end. Female passengers accounted for the largest proportion in the door area, while male passengers accounted for a larger proportion at the end of the cabin. There is no difference in the use of different seat types by passengers. There are more seats in female passengers, and females are more likely to get the remaining seats when the seat load is nearly saturated. For the auxiliary standing facilities, there are always passengers who do not use the facilities and the proportion is increasing. The facilities that can be relied on account for a greater median proportion of the passengers with facilities, but service capacity is limited. In response to these conclusions, measures to improve the design of the cabin are proposed.
Highlights
(i) To investigate the use load of one cabin in the complete driving section (ii) To investigate the occupancy of areas, seats, and auxiliary facilities in the cabin by passengers under different loads (iii) To compare the differences in occupancy behaviors of passengers of different genders (iv) To identify the influence of cabin design on passenger behavior and propose strategies for future improvement
As the design characteristics are the same for all cabins, the interior occupancy of the cabin can be analyzed directly. e calculated capacity occupancy or the proportion of some facilities used by passengers was imported into IBM SPSS Statistics 25.0, a statistical software package, for nonparametric testing. e median represents the situation of most sections in the whole line. en, the curve of the occupancy rate changing with the load factor growth was fitted by the least square method with OriginPro 2021 plotting software, and the regression model of cabin use was established
It has been observed that the maximum cabin load factor is 99.6%, Mdn 17.2% (12.3–31.2); the maximum occupancy of standing space is 99.1%, Mdn 11.1% (2–20); and the maximum occupancy of seats is 105.6%, Mdn 80.6% (68.8–97.2)
Summary
Unified technical standards are being developed for China’s metro trains, including the interior design of cabins. Berkovich et al [12] observed the New York subway and found that when the overall load rate of the cabin exceeds 120%, the load rate of the seat can exceed 90%. We state these studies to illustrate that the advantage of calculating the cabin load is that it can quantitatively evaluate the usage of the cabin. Berkovich et al [12] found that there is no gender difference in passengers’ choice of seats, and passengers standing in the cabin prefer to gather in the door area, but this study only observed noncrowded cabins. Puong [40] concluded that the
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