Influencing Longitudinal Passenger Distribution on Railway Platforms to Shorten and Regularize Train Dwell Times

Abstract

The longitudinal distribution of passengers waiting on a train platform influences the boarding and alighting time. A smoother, more uniform distribution could benefit both traffic operations and passenger experiences. This paper investigates pedestrian traffic performance and the train operations that it influences in an integrated way by proposing ( a) two in situ solutions to inform passengers and influence their waiting position on the platform, ( b) a specific survey of passenger behavior under these conditions, ( c) a modeling scheme based on a pedestrian microsimulation, and ( d) an example of application to a suburban rail station in eastern Paris, the Noisy–Champs Station on the Réseau Express Régional (RER) A Line. The example reveals a traffic phenomenon of corridor–car interplay that implicates the specific behavior of late passengers and the contribution of this phenomenon to train dwell time.