An Application of New Pedestrian Tracking Sensors for Evaluating Platform Safety Risks at Swiss and Dutch Train Stations

Abstract

Due to rapid rail passenger growth in the last years, crowding challenges have risen at several stations in Switzerland and The Netherlands. Particularly at platforms, safety risks can increase when a station is operated near or at pedestrian capacity. Therefore, Swiss and Dutch station managers started several initiatives to measure crowding-related safety risks. Recently, pedestrian measurement technology has improved substantially. New technology is capable of anonymously tracking individual pedestrians within a predefined area under high intensity conditions. This technology has not been implemented at train stations before. Therefore the Swiss and Dutch station managers have developed and applied a methodology to determine the validity of the data which are generated by the newest generation of pedestrian measurement systems at the stations of Bern (CH), Amsterdam Zuid, and Utrecht Centraal (NL). This paper presents the results of the tests in both countries and their (first) implications for science and practice.