BASED ON TRAIN CAPACITY

Understanding the nature of rail transit dwell time has potential benefits for both the users and the operators. Crowded passenger trains cause longer dwell times and may prevent some passengers from boarding the first avail-able train that arrives. Actual dwell time and the process of passenger alighting and boarding are interdependent through the sequence of train stops and propagated delays. A comprehensive and feasible dwell time simulation model was developed and optimized to address the problems asso-ciated with scheduled timetables. The paper introduces the factors that affect dwell time in urban rail transit systems, including train headway, the process and number of pas-sengers alighting and boarding the train, and the inability of train doors to properly close the first time because of over-crowded vehicles. Finally, based on a time-driven micro-sim-ulation system, Shanghai rail transit Line 8 is used as an ex-ample to quantify the feasibility of scheduled dwell times for different stations, directions of travel and time periods, and a proposed dwell time during peak hours in several crowded stations is presented according to the simulation results. KEY WORDS dwell time; train capacity; train delay; timetable simulation; rail transit; passenger volume; 1