Opinion

Improving passenger flows in stations across the UK’s rail network

Samir el Gamal, Royal HaskoningDHV

Increasing demand for rail travel is putting pressure on the capacity of the UK's transport hubs. Royal HaskoningDHV's Samir el Gamal explains how its new work with Merseyrail to condust a detailed passenger flow analysis at Liverpool Central and Moorfields stations will help to boost the passenger experience.

Railway stations in existing railway networks often face serious capacity problems at peak times, causing safety issues and reducing the customer experience. With passenger numbers continuing to grow every year, more and more stations will need to find solutions to these problems in order to ensure public transport remains an attractive mode of transport.

In a Network Rail ‘Rail Utilisation Study’, some 118 stations across the UK network were identified by as having issues with passenger congestion. As the investment cost for changing existing stations can be high, it is important to first investigate other options to optimise the station lay-out.

"Train operating Companies  play an essential role in managing the daily congestion problems at stations. Finding solutions that can improve passenger safety and customer experience will have a positive effect on their image."

Transport hubs are becoming busier and many stations were originally designed to cope with much smaller passenger numbers. Royal HaskoningDHV has recently been selected to conduct passenger flow analyses for Merseyrail at two of the city’s busiest underground stations, Liverpool Central and Moorfields.

With 110,000 passengers and over 800 daily services from Monday to Saturday, the Liverpool-based rail operator runs one of the busiest and highest performing networks in England.

The project comes at a time of major refurbishment under Network Rail’s latest plans for the city’s rail infrastructure, and will help to optimise passenger use of the railway stations as well as improve overall safety and experience for Merseyrail customers.

The simulations which Royal HaskoningDHV is conducting for Merseyrail will identify problem areas where modifications such as changing passenger routing or re-configuring ticket gatelines could have a major impact. Such improvements will result in safer and more comfortable train stations for passengers, as well as more rapid and less stressful journeys.

Train operating Companies  play an essential role in managing the daily congestion problems at stations. Finding solutions that can improve passenger safety and customer experience will have a positive effect on their image as well. Identifying long-term improvements with Network Rail and Mersey Travel is one of the goals in this current project as well.

As Janet Ives, head of safety at Merseyrail explains: “Over the years, the demographics associated with our passengers have changed considerably, and this has had a huge impact on passenger flow and behaviour. The 3D animation being developed by Royal HaskoningDHV will help us to assess such changes, optimise station capacity, improve safety and eliminate bottlenecks throughout the station.”

"Collecting good and reliable information on actual station usage will become essential for station managers."

Based on the findings of the passenger flow analyses, it will be possible to determine possible measures to reduce or eliminate certain safety issues. These measures can be categorised in three main areas: changes to the design of the station and the train schedule; influencing the behaviour of the passengers; and altering the deployment of station staff.

The most challenging aspect of a project such as this is to get the right information on current, actual passenger numbers in terms of station usage. In general, we have seen that not all station owners have this information directly available and we have to combine several different data sources..

Collecting good and reliable information on actual station usage will become essential for station managers. This information will primarily be used for real time crowd control, but can also be used to improve the inputs for simulation models.

Future station refurbishment projects will all start with a large amount of research in the actual use of the station.Several design alternatives are then tested using simulation models. This way, large investments will no longer be based on assumptions, but on facts.

Samir el Gamal is business development director for transport hubs at Royal HaskoningDHV