Risk Assessment Model for Railway Passengers on a Crowded Platform

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to develop a risk assessment measure to provide an understanding of the safety of railway station platforms. We estimated the number of accidents on a platform in a year. It was influenced by the factors such as the design, equipment, and the profile of the station users. Consequently, 16 factors were defined, such as the platform design and passenger movement. Poisson regression and negative binomial regression models were employed to estimate and analyze the number of accidents from a station database containing 158 platforms from 52 stations in Japan. The results show that the number of accidents is related to the length of the narrow part of a platform, the width of the gap between the platform and train, the curvature of the platform, passenger flow crossing, the number of trains passing and stopping, and the audio and visual announcements concerning approaching trains. We expect that this result will allow railway companies to identify weaknesses in station safety and subsequently set priorities for investments in safety. Furthermore, administrative authorities can evaluate the safety performances of railway companies, and consider subsidies for investments in safety.