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Analysis of Rail Passenger Flow in a Rail Station Concourse Prior to and During the COVID-19 Pandemic Using Event-Based Simulation Models and Scenarios

During COVID-19, certain means were proposed to improve crowd management in the Birmingham New Street railway station. To validate the current system of crowd management in the station, this paper examines the rail passenger flow in the concourse of the Birmingham New Street railway station and the...

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Autores principales: Lee, Jeremy, Marinov, Marin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9099279/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35582430
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40864-022-00167-w
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author Lee, Jeremy
Marinov, Marin
author_facet Lee, Jeremy
Marinov, Marin
author_sort Lee, Jeremy
collection PubMed
description During COVID-19, certain means were proposed to improve crowd management in the Birmingham New Street railway station. To validate the current system of crowd management in the station, this paper examines the rail passenger flow in the concourse of the Birmingham New Street railway station and the passenger interactions and queueing phenomena associated with it, mainly at the ticket machines, offices and gates, prior to and during the implementation of COVID-19 measures. The passenger behaviour in the concourse of the station was simulated using the SIMUL8 event-based simulation modelling package. Three different scenarios were modelled to analyse the changes and impacts from pre-COVID-19 and within the COVID-19 context. The results revealed that passenger behaviour in railway stations is changing due to COVID-19. Specifically, passengers are more likely to buy tickets using their smartphones or online prior to or whilst entering the station so that they can go through the station concourse with minimal queuing times and avoid contact with a facility of common use at the station, whereas those without tickets are more likely to be in a queue to buy their tickets in the station. For pre-COVID, the results showed that even with a reduced number of ticket machines, overcrowding inside the station was unlikely to occur, as 80% of all passengers in the simulation completed service within a 15-minute time frame. However, during implementation of COVID-19 measures, as the number of passengers using the station dropped significantly and more passengers bought their tickets using their smartphones and/or online, queueing times were also shorter, and thus passengers spent less time in the system. The simulation results were in accordance with the expected practice; hence the effectiveness of the simulation model was verified. Overall, as a result of this study, the following suggestions to improve crowd management in a railway passenger station concourse are proposed: encourage passengers to purchase tickets on their smartphones, remove ticket gates and replace them with sensors, and provide a one-way passenger flow system in the main concourse of the station.
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spelling pubmed-90992792022-05-13 Analysis of Rail Passenger Flow in a Rail Station Concourse Prior to and During the COVID-19 Pandemic Using Event-Based Simulation Models and Scenarios Lee, Jeremy Marinov, Marin Urban Rail Transit Original Research Papers During COVID-19, certain means were proposed to improve crowd management in the Birmingham New Street railway station. To validate the current system of crowd management in the station, this paper examines the rail passenger flow in the concourse of the Birmingham New Street railway station and the passenger interactions and queueing phenomena associated with it, mainly at the ticket machines, offices and gates, prior to and during the implementation of COVID-19 measures. The passenger behaviour in the concourse of the station was simulated using the SIMUL8 event-based simulation modelling package. Three different scenarios were modelled to analyse the changes and impacts from pre-COVID-19 and within the COVID-19 context. The results revealed that passenger behaviour in railway stations is changing due to COVID-19. Specifically, passengers are more likely to buy tickets using their smartphones or online prior to or whilst entering the station so that they can go through the station concourse with minimal queuing times and avoid contact with a facility of common use at the station, whereas those without tickets are more likely to be in a queue to buy their tickets in the station. For pre-COVID, the results showed that even with a reduced number of ticket machines, overcrowding inside the station was unlikely to occur, as 80% of all passengers in the simulation completed service within a 15-minute time frame. However, during implementation of COVID-19 measures, as the number of passengers using the station dropped significantly and more passengers bought their tickets using their smartphones and/or online, queueing times were also shorter, and thus passengers spent less time in the system. The simulation results were in accordance with the expected practice; hence the effectiveness of the simulation model was verified. Overall, as a result of this study, the following suggestions to improve crowd management in a railway passenger station concourse are proposed: encourage passengers to purchase tickets on their smartphones, remove ticket gates and replace them with sensors, and provide a one-way passenger flow system in the main concourse of the station. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2022-05-13 2022 /pmc/articles/PMC9099279/ /pubmed/35582430 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40864-022-00167-w Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Original Research Papers
Lee, Jeremy
Marinov, Marin
Analysis of Rail Passenger Flow in a Rail Station Concourse Prior to and During the COVID-19 Pandemic Using Event-Based Simulation Models and Scenarios
title Analysis of Rail Passenger Flow in a Rail Station Concourse Prior to and During the COVID-19 Pandemic Using Event-Based Simulation Models and Scenarios
title_full Analysis of Rail Passenger Flow in a Rail Station Concourse Prior to and During the COVID-19 Pandemic Using Event-Based Simulation Models and Scenarios
title_fullStr Analysis of Rail Passenger Flow in a Rail Station Concourse Prior to and During the COVID-19 Pandemic Using Event-Based Simulation Models and Scenarios
title_full_unstemmed Analysis of Rail Passenger Flow in a Rail Station Concourse Prior to and During the COVID-19 Pandemic Using Event-Based Simulation Models and Scenarios
title_short Analysis of Rail Passenger Flow in a Rail Station Concourse Prior to and During the COVID-19 Pandemic Using Event-Based Simulation Models and Scenarios
title_sort analysis of rail passenger flow in a rail station concourse prior to and during the covid-19 pandemic using event-based simulation models and scenarios
topic Original Research Papers
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9099279/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35582430
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40864-022-00167-w
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