Crowdedness Classification Method for Island Platform in Metro Station.

For safety and energy reasons, most metro stations in China choose to install platform screen doors (PSDs), which make passengers not distribute evenly on the platform, but instead gather into clusters in front of screen doors to wait for a train. However, the traditional evaluation method considers passengers evenly distributing on platform and does not reflect the actual status of waiting passengers. In addition, the traditional method is limited to accurately describe the crowdedness level on platform and merely considers per capita space and walking freedom, neglecting the service quality in the boarding process and safety evacuation in an emergency. Subsequently, the paper introduces the new classification method of crowdedness levels, which not only considers pedestrian flow characteristics but also takes the concepts of boarding service for passengers and safety evacuation for managers into account. From the perspectives of passengers and managers, this paper defines and calculates four key indicators-per capita space, per capita longitudinal distance, boarding coefficient, and evacuation coefficient-and then classifies the crowdedness level with the -mean cluster analysis method. Finally, the paper verifies the applicability and feasibility with an actual case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]