Applying System Dynamics to Simulate the Passenger Flow in Subway Stations

Abstract

A macroscopic passenger flow simulation model based on system dynamics is proposed in this paper. It considers the key factors influencing the dynamics of passenger flow from a holistic perspective of the stations and then models the dynamic change in the number of passengers. Firstly, the transmission of passenger flow for a general many-to-many relation between nodes are presented. When the sum of sending capacities heading for a downstream node is less than the receiving capacity of this node, the aggregation of stranded passengers will form the queuing part of the node. The results coming from a passenger flow simulation of a subway station in Beijing show that the proposed model performs well by comparing it with the real data. It can be applied to describe the dynamic change in the number of passengers and the level of service for the facilities.