Improvement Strategy at Pedestrian Bottleneck in Subway Stations

The bottleneck normally refers to a narrowed region that decreases the flow, which is the key limiting factor in the pedestrian flow in the subway station. Due to the confined space, pedestrians are frequently forced to gather together at bottlenecks, which could not only limit the pedestrians’ efficiency and comfort but also cause serious crowd catastrophes such as stampedes. Optimization techniques for crowd congestion in subway stations should be investigated. This study proposed and demonstrated a set of optimization methods using conduction field experiments. The effects of passing time, traffic efficiency, speed, and density were explored using different design models. Results showed that optimization methods such as the design with a 45° funnel, broken guardrail, concaves, and column on the left had significant optimal effects. The optimization methods used in this study would help to implement bottlenecks in subway stations and provide design suggestions to subway designers.