Operational measures to maintaining physical distancing at railway stations

Abstract

The corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has increased awareness towards maintaining physical distancing during transportation-related activities. This study presents a microsimulation model to explore operational measures to maintain physical distance among railway station passengers. The secondary and primary data obtained from field surveys are utilized to construct and calibrate the model. The peak hour data is employed to investigate the worst-case conditions. The calibrated model is then utilized to evaluate several operational measures, i.e., changing the headway, increasing the train capacity, increasing the train door duration, and changing the train door rules. From the simulation, it is found that changing the train door rules was ineffective if it was individually implemented. It is concluded that a combination of operational measures provides additional benefits for maintaining physical distancing among passengers.