MODELLING PEDESTRIAN CHOICE BETWEEN STAIRWAY AND ESCALATOR IN ASCENDING ELEVATED PASSAGEWAY INSIDE INTERCITY RAILWAY STATION
Keywords:
Pedestrian, stairway, escalator, railway stations, choice behavior, binary logit modelAbstract
Pedestrians alighting and boarding trains in intercity railway stations often use elevated passageway using stairways or escalators to access among platforms. While making route choice, they in general take shortest route in terms of travel time and distance. In making choice between vertical facilities: stairway and escalator, pedestrian’s demographic characteristics, infrastructure characteristics and flow characteristics influence as the effort involved in traversing increases with individual’s age, luggage, trip purpose, step rise step foot, inclination etc., The choice is found to be more sensitive to relative delays. In this study, an attempt is made to understand and replicate pedestrian perception in choice making between stairway and escalator with respect to demographic factors. Pedestrian flow characteristics are studied on six stairways from three intercity railway stations Secunderabad, Warangal, Vijayawada of South Central Railway (SCR) zone, India. Pedestrian perception of choice between stairway and escalator for an excerpt video captured on the stairways is acquired from questionnaire survey. It is observed that pedestrian’s age, gender, educational qualification, marital status, employment status, inclination of stairway with horizontal, time of day and frequency of visiting intercity railway station (familiarity) significantly affect the choice between escalator and stairway. A binary logit model is developed for the choice with influencing variables. This study helps in understanding the proportion of pedestrians’ shift towards a new facility. It aids as a tool in design, planning, and management to accommodate the predicted demand for an intercity railway station.
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