Passenger management strategy and evacuation in subway station under Covid-19

ABSTRACT

Under the background of Covid-19 sweeping the world, safe and reasonable passenger flow management strategy in subway stations is an effective means to prevent the spread of virus. Based on the social force model and the minimum cost model, the movement and path selection behavior of passengers in the subway station are modeled, and a strategy for passenger flow management to maintain a safe social distance is put forward. Take Qingdao Jinggangshan Road subway station of China as the simulation scene, the validity of the simulation model is verified by comparing the measured value and simulation value of the time required for passengers from getting off the train to the ticket gate. Simulation results indicate that controlling the time interval between incoming passengers at the entrance can effectively control the social distance between passengers and reduce the risk of epidemic infection. By comparing the evacuation process of passengers under different initial densities, it is found that the greater the initial density of passengers is, the longer the passengers are at risk social distance. In the process of passenger emergency evacuation, the stairs/escalators and ticket gates are bottleneck areas with high concentration of passenger density, which should be strictly disinfected many times on the basis of strictly checking the health code of incoming passengers and controlling the arrival time interval. The simulation results of this paper verify the harmfulness of passenger emergency evacuation without protective measures, and provide theoretical support for the operation and management of subway station under the epidemic situation.