Passenger flow control with multi-station coordination in subway networks: algorithm development and real-world case study

This paper addresses the problem of passenger flow control in a multi-line subway network during peak hours. A new multi-station coordinated passenger flow control model is proposed to simultaneously adjust the number of inbound and transfer passengers entering multiple stations or lines. The implementation of passenger flow control governs the redundant passengers to queue at given facilities, which is similar to ramp metering that regulates the number of vehicles entering a highway segment. The proposed model is a bi-level programming, whose upper level aims to optimize the system performance with different passenger flow control strategies, while the lower level is a logit-based stochastic user equilibrium assignment problem under a given strategy, considering passenger flow evolution, dynamic path cost, and route choice. An algorithm, integrating the method of successive averages with genetic algorithm, is developed to solve the model. A real-world case study is conducted to examine the validity.