ANALYSIS OF PEDESTRIAN FLOWS ON STAIRS AT METRO STATIONS

Abstract

Pedestrian flow characteristics are basically speed, area module, and flow of pedestrians. The travel demand is increasing due to an increase in population day by day and it get reflected in the pedestrian movements and their volume. Such movements may be on sidewalks, crosswalks and level change facilities. All such facilities should be designed to have a required Level of Service. At the same time the facilities should provide safe, efficient and pedestrian friendly movement. The limits of the LOS are decided as per various flow characteristics of the pedestrians. Adequate work is available on facilities like sidewalk and crosswalk. But the work on pedestrian movements at level change facilities is not sufficient, especially in India, so that an understanding on flow characteristics of the pedestrians at level change facilities can be improved which results in formulation of guidelines. IRC:103-2012 is also silent on these aspects. Data were collected at the selected Delhi Metro Rail stations with permission from Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC). One of the metro rail stations is near City Inter-State Bus Terminal and other two are line interchanges. Video were recorded during morning and evening peak periods or periods having substantial flow. The required data were extracted using per minute frame rate of 25. The pedestrian speed on stairs at metro rail stations is analyzed. Variation in speed with respect to various factors like pedestrian age, gender, load carrying condition and percentage of opposite flow etc. is studied. The mean speed of the female pedestrian is found to be relatively lower than the male pedestrians. The pedestrians carrying luggage negatively impacted the overall speed of the crowd. The speed of pedestrians moving in a direction decreased with an increase in the opposite flow as compared to bi-directional flow. Based on the analysis the pedestrian speed beyond 105 m/min is considered as the running speed. Pedestrians preferred to move on their left hand side. Variation in flow and pedestrian flow diagrams between the flow characteristics of pedestrian are also analyzed. It is observed that no relationship is predictable between Speed-Density and Speed-Flow in all the cases due to availability of low density and flow data. Power relation is found to be existing between Flow-Density and Flow-Area Module in almost all the cases except some cases in which quadratic relationship is found to be existing. Variation in speed at low density is found to be higher as compared to the speed at high density. The lowest area module among various locations under study is observed as 0.50 m2/p, which is higher than the area given by Fruin (1971) for body v ellipse i.e. 0.28 m2. It is found that speed at same density is higher in case of lower opposite flow as compared to the case with higher opposite flow which results in lower performance of staircase. Peak flow was found starting building up after an average time lag of 9.16 seconds after arrival of metro train at the platform. The speed and flow analysis presented in this study can contribute some information to IRC-103-2012. The design criteria may be modified as per the needs of the pedestrians and to ensure an efficient management of pedestrian flows at level change facilities. Various other analyses which can be performed are Route Choice behaviour of pedestrians, delays and queue formation in approach area of a stair with respect to the arrival of a train and LOS for stairways. Experimental study can provide better flow regimes as compared to the field study. This is also recommended to the researchers.