Evaluation of Pedestrian Walking Speed in Rail Transit Terminal

Current trend shows an exponential increase in rail traffic passenger volume, causing more attention must be paid to the crowd safety in rail transit terminal (RTT). In Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur Sentral Station (KLSS) is the largest transit terminal and as of 2017, the commuters at KLSS have reached 180,000. With this substantial number of commuters, walking might be difficult especially during peak hours. Hence, a better understanding of crowd dynamics is the key to plan and manage the pedestrians’ flow in RTT. One of important crowd attributes that crucial to be quantified specifically is walking speed. While walking speed has been studied in general, such analysis specific to RTT commuters is still lacking. In this contribution, the main objective is to evaluate the walking speed of the commuters in KLSS by considering different pedestrians walking categories, like normal walking, walking with luggage and walking while looking at the gadget in hand. Data gathering was conducted by video footage during peak hours (morning, afternoon and evening) for four consecutive days. Total of 26 videos with 10 minutes duration were recorded and each video was analyzed using Autodesk Maya (2016) software with Human Behavior Simulator (HBS) plug-in. As the preliminary findings, the average walking speed of 393 pedestrians was 1.4 m/s. The average walking speed for normal walking female pedestrians was 1.46 m/s (morning), 1.34 m/s (afternoon), and 1.36 m/s (evening) and for normal walking male pedestrians was 1.38 m/s (morning), 1.44 m/s (afternoon), and 1.39 m/s (evening). Meanwhile, the average walking speed of male walking with luggage was 1.24 m/s (morning), 1.38 m/s (afternoon) and 1.38 m/s (evening) and for female walking with luggage was 1.14 m/s (morning), 1.27 m/s (afternoon) and 1.38 m/s (evening). Furthermore, the average walking speed of male walking with gadget was 1.01 m/s (morning), 1.41 m/s (afternoon) and 1.40 m/s (evening) and for female walking with gadget was 1.04 m/s (morning), 1.38 m/s (afternoon) and 1.32 m/s (evening). Male walking speed is higher compare to female in all three categories with 1.4%, 5.6% and 2.4% different in average walking speed for normal walking, walking with luggage and walking with gadget, respectively

Effect Of Corner On Evacuation Behaviour During Building Egress By Using Dem-Based Multi Agent Model

This thesis focuses on the effect of corner on evacuation behaviour during building egress. The case study is conducted at Pusat Pengajian Kejuruteraan Awam (PPKA). The objectives of this study were to quantify the capacity of corner, determine numerically the threshold density near the corner during building egress and determine the critical width related to different density of pedestrian. Simulation of hypothetical evacuation scenarios at corner was carried out based on different pedestrian density and different widths. The main parameters of this study are the pedestrian density and width of corner. A total of 27 simulations had been performed on the trial domain with three different width and nine different pedestrian density. Crowd Behaviour Simulator for Disaster Evacuation (CBS-DE) with the additional tool called Human Behaviour Simulator (HBS) was used to analyse the evacuation behaviour. The results of the simulations were egress time and interaction force. The findings show that there are no series of jamming and clogging that indicate the threshold density since the pedestrian density may be not sufficient to cause jamming and clogging. Meanwhile, Inter-9 shows the best time series of the maximum interaction force graph with pattern of increasing maximum interaction force as the corridor width decreases and the interaction force did not exceed the upper and lower limit of contact force. From the case study, it is found that the alternative evacuation route can improve the evacuation process at the ground floor of PPKA

Analysis Of Pedestrian Behaviour Attributes In Rail Transit Terminal Based On Pedestrian Spatial Interaction

Understanding the dynamics of a crowd is fundamental in planning and managing pedestrians' flow of large public buildings and urban environments. In this study, computational analysis was conducted to investigate pedestrian behaviour attributes in Rail Transit Terminal (RTT) by considering different pedestrian activities while walking based on spatial interaction. The study was piloted at the largest RTT in Kuala Lumpur. The objectives were to empirically determine pedestrian behaviour attributes based on spatial interaction and formulate pedestrian perception domain concerning Malaysian pedestrian in RTT. A total of 359 numbers of pedestrian (NOP) were chosen from 26 recorded videos. The chosen pedestrian was divided into two categories, (1) gender; (2) secondary activities while walking (carrying luggage and using gadget specifically smartphone while walking). Four pedestrians' behaviour attributes were investigated empirically, namely walking velocity, psychological distance, angular velocity and angle of avoidance, with the extension of density relation and formulation of pedestrian perception domain. From the findings, female pedestrians who walk while carrying luggage recorded the lowest average walking velocity, 1.27 m/s followed by males with luggage (1.36 m/s), female and male using gadget while walking (1.37 m/s). Meanwhile, for the pedestrian psychological distance, males using gadget while walking recorded the highest with 3.72 m, and males with luggage recorded the lowest distance with 3.12. When classified according to distance zone proposed by Hall, 1966, 54% of pedestrian average psychological distance falls in the social distance (1.20 – 3.60 m) and 46% fall in public distance (3.60 – 7.60 m). This indicates that chosen pedestrians were individual pedestrian that has no relation with other pedestrians (stranger) around them. For the pedestrian angular velocity, where males with luggage recorded the highest velocity (2.18 rad./s) and females who walk without any activity recorded the lowest velocity (0.96 rad./s). The final attribute, the pedestrian angle of avoidance, male with luggage recorded the highest (49.94o) and female without any secondary activity while walking recorded the lowest (21.98º). Last, the formulation of pedestrian perception domain from obtained pedestrian behaviour attributes was conducted to represent pedestrian interaction in RTT. It is believed that different pedestrian activities contributed to different behaviour attributes in RTT. Through the understanding of pedestrian, behaviour attributes in RTT at Malaysia allow the infrastructure planner and policymakers to predict future walking behaviour and plan the strategic alternative for a continuation of smooth pedestrian movement