Can Monetary Incentive Regulate Boarding Passenger Distribution on the Metro Station Platform?

Abstract

To equilibrate the passenger distribution on the metro platform and carriage, a monetary incentive policy was explored in this paper; a discount on travel fare was provided to motivate metro passengers to queue for boarding in the noncrowded areas on the platform. The congested state is evaluated combined with the passenger distribution in the upcoming metro carriage. The utility of metro passengers and companies caused by the monetary incentive policy was analyzed, and the binary logit model was used to relate the utility to the passenger’s willingness to move from crowded areas to noncrowded ones. With data acquired from the questionnaire survey, a regression analysis was employed to explain the variation in passengers’ willingness to move as a function of discount level as well as personal and trip characteristics. The regression results show that effect of incentive discount is greater on female passengers and elderly passengers. A 10% discount can motivate most passengers aged over 40, and a 30% discount works on most female passengers. According to the different levels of passenger sensitivity, a particular discount can be determined to motivate a specific proportion of passengers to move and achieve the regulation of passenger distribution on the metro station platform and metro carriage.