Pedestrian management strategies for improving flow dynamics in transportation hubs

Forecasts predict a strong increase of the demand of public transport facilities in the next decades, close to doubling the number of users in the "Arc lémanique" area. This increase in demand can lead to congestion and poor level-of-service inside transportation hubs. The aim of this paper is to develop control strategies which aim at guiding pedestrians in hubs and improving the flow dynamics. The objective is to guarantee adequate level-of-service throughout the infrastructure. This is achieved by influencing the locations pedestrians dwell while waiting or the activities they perform before or after using a public transport mode. Not only are "hard" strategies developed (barriers for example) but "soft" strategies like information or advertisement are also used. These measures are coupled with a dynamic assignment and demand model to simulate the effect on pedestrian flows. To quantify the impact of such management strategies, a simulation framework is developed and the results are compared to real-life data collected in the train station of Lausanne. Through this framework, pedestrian control measures can be tested and validated before being implemented in practice, and the impact of such decisions can be maximized, furthermore the performance of the facility is improved.

Two management strategies for improving passenger transfer experience in train stations

Michel Bierlaire, Nicholas Alan Molyneaux, Riccardo Scarinci

Exploiting the full potential of pedestrian infrastructures in order to satisfy the demand induced by public transport modes is key to achieving good level-of-service for passengers during transfers. High temporal variability in demand can lead to high congestion and possibly dangerous situations while the infrastructure is underused moments after. In order to improve the level-of-service experienced by pedestrians, two management strategies are investigated. Firstly, the utilization of gates to control the flows of passengers moving around the station is explored thanks to a PI control structure. Secondly, counter flow is minimized by dynamically adapting the space to the flows moving in opposing directions. This can be achieved by separating the corridor into two parts, one dedicated to each flow direction. The station of Lausanne, Switzerland is used as a case study for these strategies. Gating proved e ffi cient to limit congestion without significantly increasings the travel time of passengers. The expected results when separating counter flow are similar: an increase in comfort without negatively impacting travel time. Finally, the implementation of e ffi cient management strategies for pedestrians can significantly improve the transfer experience in transportation hubs by controlling the walking times between services.

2018

Scenario Analysis of Pedestrian Flow in Public Spaces

Michel Bierlaire, Antonin Danalet, Bilal Farooq, Flurin Silvan Hänseler, Amir Sohrab Sahaleh

Several modeling approaches in both microscopic and macroscopic scales have been already put forward into the pedestrian modeling literature. The most operational one of these models is the social force model, where forces are first defined by physical concepts (Newtons equation) and then have been applied to pedestrian behaviors. On the contrary, there are also models based on discrete choice modeling concept that go deeper in behavioral aspects of pedestrians reactions rather than physical forces. In this paper, first we go through the literature in pedestrian modeling domain. Subsequently a real pedestrian simulation experiment conducted in the SV building at EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) is explored. In this building, at a medium sized entrance hall peoples walking behaviors become extremely interesting at certain periods of the day since they take different entrances and exits depending on various destinations that they can reach by passing this hall. We have put a strong emphasis on model calibration. The simulator we used for calibration and simulation is called VISSIM. The VISSWALK add-on of the software (intended exclusively for pedestrians) has been mainly exploited which is based on the social force model. Another dataset is currently collected at a train station which experiences interesting passenger behaviors. The train station is a highly frequent multi-modal transportation hub. This second dataset can be of a high interest for more development in pedestrian modeling especially in the model calibration and validation. Basically, the SV building project is a part of a bigger project concerning pedestrian flow simulation/optimization in a transportation hub where the same methodology and calibration method tested for the SV building are going to be exploited. For the SV building experiment various forecasting (demand change) and optimization (supply change) scenarios are also built and simulated. The analysis of the results from these scenarios is presented.

2012

Scenario Analysis of Pedestrian Flow in Public Spaces

Michel Bierlaire, Antonin Danalet, Bilal Farooq, Flurin Silvan Hänseler, Amir Sohrab Sahaleh

2012

Scenario Analysis of Pedestrian Flow in Public Spaces

Michel Bierlaire, Antonin Danalet, Bilal Farooq, Flurin Silvan Hänseler, Amir Sohrab Sahaleh

2012

Scenario Analysis of Pedestrian Flow in Public Spaces

Michel Bierlaire, Antonin Danalet, Bilal Farooq, Flurin Silvan Hänseler, Amir Sohrab Sahaleh

2012