Passenger waiting strategies on railway platforms - Effects of information and platform facilities - : Case study Sweden and Japan

Abstract: Abstract The Swedish railway has during many years received low customer satisfaction scores. Reasons for this are reliability, service and information concerns. The focus of this master thesis lies on the railway platform. The platform is an important part to the factors above as its information and facilities, which constitute a part of the service before the trip, could contribute in causing delays and reliability issues. This study investigates the behaviour of passengers on railway platforms and the effect that information, seats and entrances along the platform has on that behaviour. The goal is to find advantages and disadvantages and propose improvements in a Swedish setting. Platforms and trains that have been studied are in Stockholm, Sweden and Tokyo, Japan. Platform distributions and individual behaviour on the platforms are recorded with three different and relatively easy methods. Results of the Swedish study show aggregate trends where passengers tend to cluster around entrances and seats. Many Swedish passengers do not believe themselves to have enough information to know where their car will stop. These passengers do mostly not know that information exist and on average stand much further away from their closest door, when the train arrives, compared to passengers that believe themselves to know where their car will stop along the platform. The results of the Japanese study show that almost all passengers stand close to their door. From the findings in not only this, but also other studies, four aggregate properties in order to get better railway platforms are finally presented. These properties are reliability, clarity and availability of information and good location of seats and other facilities. Suggestions for tangible improvements for the Swedish railway platforms are finally given. Among these improvements are new information screens and standardized information and stopping position of trains.