Study on Behavioral Characteristics of Three- Dimensional Pedestrian Flow on Stairway at Khurda Railway Station

Abstract

Walking is the most primitive mode of transportation. Pedestrians are one of the most vulnerable entities of the transportation system. The pedestrian flow is more complex than vehicle movement because of people are more flexible than vehicle. Nowadays pedestrian motion in two dimensional and three dimensional plays a vital role in daily transportation. In pedestrian flow, most of the problems occur due to inadequate information system and improper planning and design of the flow space. Pedestrian flow takes place in confined environment on stairways under the impact of composition, direction of movement, and schedule of trains. During peak-period, alighting and boarding rate is quite high resulting in very high pedestrian movement from one platform to the other to catch the next train at interchange stations. The transfer of passengers from railway platforms through common undivided stairways becomes difficult, uncomfortable, and unsafe at times when pedestrian flow reaches the capacity level and due to this Level of service and safety of pedestrian flow space are hampered. Pedestrian movements are captured through videography at stairways and the study has mainly observed and recorded speed, flow and density of individual pedestrians. Higher walking speed is reported on downstairs than upstairs with reduction in speed with increase in pedestrian density. Most of the pedestrian facilities are designed by rule of thumb, especially stairways, largely governed by ideal pedestrian behaviour. However behaviour of individual pedestrian and hence flow at rail transit stations are dynamic on stairways depending on the factors mentioned above. Present study attempts to highlight the results of the study carried out on pedestrian flow behaviour at Khurda railway station in the state of Orissa, India. The outcome of the study is useful for capacity and level of service analysis while planning and designing the transit station stairways as well as safety in situation of emergency. Fundamental diagrams of speed-density, speed-flow and flow-density were compared with the data collected from field observations.