A Fuzzy Logic-Based Approach for Estimation of Dwelling Times of Panama Metro Stations

Passenger flow modeling and station dwelling time estimation are significant elements for railway mass transit planning, but system operators usually have limited information to model the passenger flow. In this paper, an artificial-intelligence technique known as fuzzy logic is applied for the estimation of the elements of the origin-destination matrix and the dwelling time of stations in a railway transport system. The fuzzy inference engine used in the algorithm is based in the principle of maximum entropy. The approach considers passengers’ preferences to assign a level of congestion in each car of the train in function of the properties of the station platforms. This approach is implemented to estimate the passenger flow and dwelling times of the recently opened Line 1 of the Panama Metro. The dwelling times obtained from the simulation are compared to real measurements to validate the approach.The authors of this paper want to express their gratitude to the National Secretary of Science and Technology (SENACYT) of the Government of the Republic of Panama for funding this study through the R & D project (MDEPRB09-001). Additionally, they want to thank the support received from Technological University of Panama (UTP), the University of Granada, the Fundación Carolina and the Secretaría del Metro de Panamá (SMP)