Flurin Hänseler

Estimation of pedestrian origin-destination demand in train stations

We present a framework for estimating pedestrian demand within a train station. It takes into account ridership data, and various direct and indirect indicators of demand. Such indicators may include link flow counts, density measurements, survey data, historical, or other information. The problem is considered in discrete time and at the aggregate level, i.e., for groups of pedestrians associated with the same origin-destination pair and departure time interval. The formulation is probabilistic, allowing to consider the stochasticity of demand. A key element is the use of the train timetable, and in particular of train arrival times, to capture demand peaks. A case study analysis of a Swiss train station underlines the practical applicability of the proposed framework. Compared to a classical estimator that ignores the notion of a train timetable, the gain in accuracy in terms of root-mean-square error is between 20% and 50%. More importantly, the incorporation of the train schedule allows for prediction...

Data-Driven Characterisation of Multidirectional Pedestrian Traffic

We propose the framework for pedestrian traffic characterisation that is derived by extending Edie’s definitions through a data-driven discretisation. The discretisation framework is based on three-dimensional Voronoi diagrams in order for the characterisation to be as independent as possible from an arbitrarily chosen aggregation. It can be designed through the utilisation of pedestrian trajectories described either analytically or as a sample of points.