Optimization-based feedback control of passenger flow in subway stations for improving level of service

An analytical model is proposed to simulate the passenger flow in a subway station using the ordinary differential equation with the average passenger density in the facilities as the state variable. In order to realize the well-organized inbound process, a linear programming-based feedback control model (LFCM) is proposed to compute the optimal feedback passenger inflows of various facilities and velocities to improve the level of service. In order to deal with the unsolvable LFCM, which is caused by the cyclic operation characteristic of a subway station, a network-switch mechanism is incorporated to the LFCM to improve the performance of control model. Finally, a small numerical example is used to illustrate the features of our proposed model.