Perpustakaan Digital ITB
Increasing the acceleration and deceleration of
trains within a railway network can improve the performance of the system. However, the risk of passengers
losing their balance and falling is also increased. The
purpose of this paper is therefore to examine the effect of
longitudinal vehicle accelerations on passenger safety and
comfort. The literature review brings together two separate
disciplinary areas, considering the effects of acceleration
on balance from a physiological/kinesiological perspective,
as well as looking at the results of previous empirical
studies on the levels of acceleration that railway passengers
will tolerate. The paper also describes an experiment carried out on the Tyne and Wear Metro, which gathered data
on typical acceleration levels to compare against the findings of the literature review. It was found that both the
magnitude of the accelerations and their rate of change
(jerk) are important. The results also suggest that there may
be scope to improve the trade-off between journey times,
energy consumption and passenger comfort by fine control
of the acceleration/jerk profile. This is particularly relevant
to urban rail systems, as they typically feature relatively
high acceleration and deceleration. However, the findings
for passenger comfort are equally applicable to conventional regional and intercity services.