A Fuzzy-Theory-Based Social Force Model for Studying the Impact of Alighting Area Width on Alighting and Boarding Behaviors

Alighting and boarding efficiency (A&Be) of passengers plays an important role in the formulation of subway timetable. This paper studies the impact of alighting area width on A&Be based on the improved social force model. This improved model adopts the fuzzy logic theory considering factors of train dwell time and passengers ahead to determine the desired speeds of passengers instead of setting fixed values. The $t$ -test method verifies the validity of the model. The passenger movement dynamics characterized by the alighted or boarded passenger quantities, the desired speeds, and the actual speeds over time is then analyzed. The simulation results indicate when people keep to the civilized rules of alighting first, A&Be will be improved significantly with increasing the alighting area width. Otherwise, the arbitrary increase of alighting area width does not necessarily improve A&Be. The alighting area width during the actual design should be determined by the specific passenger volume and passenger civility. Whether the countermeasure of adding the fences to separate the alighting passengers from the boarding passengers is effective to improve the travel efficiency is finally explored through analyzing the simulation results. Our findings could provide theoretical supports for decision-making of waiting area division on the subway platform and passenger flow management in reality.