Growing cities have difficulty moving the masses vertically and over the surface

Cities grow up and in breadth, so their infrastructure should guarantee people a comfortable movement along the vertical and on the surface of the city

The first article in the series “moving the masses” about managing the flow of crowds or individuals, drivers or pedestrians, customers or those traveling to work, birds or ants.

Cities around the world face the challenges and opportunities of the “human volume” - the vertical accumulation and movement of people and things within the growing central business districts. This is especially noticeable in areas of transport hubs (TPU).

With the growth of cities, they become more vertical. They expand under the ground through railway tunnels and above ground in the form of tall buildings that form the silhouette of the city. Cities are not only becoming wider, but also deeper.

City geographer Stephen Graham describes the vertical growth of cities as both “stacking” and “disorderly construction” —and these systems are stitched together with vertical and horizontal transport systems.

Issues of human flow in large cities do not only relate to how people move horizontally along railways and highways, getting to the center and back. This also includes vertical movement. These are elevators, escalators, moving sidewalks ( travolators ) that people who get to work and home use daily to get out of the ground to the surface.

Large TPU intersects many vertical and horizontal transport systems. It is there that the flow of people is the most dense. But many large cities face the same problems of an aging infrastructure and an increase in the number of people moving through the TPU. Problems of congestion, overflow, delays and periodic transport failure are becoming more common. Governments are increasingly looking for ways to cram more bandwidth into existing infrastructure networks.

Can we increase throughput by changing our behavior?

In the past three years, Transport for London (TfL), [a division of the London administration that controls its transport system / approx. transl.], conducted experiments on the use of escalators, forbidding to walk on them, and allowing only to stand still. This was done in order to see whether changing the behavior of people traveling to and from work increases throughput and reduces delays.

London Underground is one of the deepest in the world. This means that the London Underground, which the locals call the “the Tube” - “The Pipe” - relies heavily on vertical transportation systems, escalators. But a long-standing agreement implies that people stand on the right side of the escalators and allow others to pass on the left.

As an experiment, at Holborn Station, one of the deepest, located at a depth of 23 meters, people were asked to stand on both sides of the escalators during the morning rush hour. The test results showed that changing people's behavior can increase throughput by as much as 30% at peak times. But it works only on pipe stations with very high escalators. At stations with escalators less than 18 meters high, for example, Kanari Wharf, the tests gave the opposite effect - standing on an escalator increased the delays of the entire network.



The difference is due to people's behavior. People are less likely to walk on high escalators. This means that the rule introduced throughout the network, which prohibits walking on escalators, will not improve the uniformity of the flow of people, and may even worsen the situation with congestion.

Do solutions provide data on the movement of people?

With the introduction of transport cards [the Oyster electronic transport card in London was introduced in 2003 / approx. trans. ] it became possible to collect more data on the movement of people on loaded TPU. Tracking the movement of people inside stations, carried out through devices that support WiFi (smartphones), can also help to get an accurate picture of the movement between platforms, jams and delays. TfL has already conducted the first tracking test over WiFi in the subway.

Mobile data collection involves privacy issues. However, in using this data to solve the problems of traffic overcrowding and to inform passengers about delays and traffic jams, a great potential is hidden.

Governments are also increasingly turning to consulting companies specializing in simulation and modeling of human flows. This includes everything from queues for registration and to terminals to tracking routes and traffic on escalators.

Using analytical tools, specialists in moving people determine patterns of movement, calculate attendance and analyze the behavior of passengers. They are looking for ways to increase the efficiency of the existing infrastructure, changing the schedule and paths of movement, and evaluating the direction of movement of passengers. Construction and engineering companies are also starting to hire people to move people to the stage of developing large infrastructure projects.

Beijing Daxing Airport, after completion of construction in 2020, will become the largest TPU of China. It is also the first large infrastructure project that uses crowd movement simulation and programs for analyzing traffic flows during the development process, which helps to verify whether the node’s capacity is sufficient to serve the estimated passenger volume.

Advice from specialists on the movement of people can seriously affect the physical infrastructure. This includes aspects such as the width of the platforms, the number and location of entrances, the layout and location of vertical transport, for example, escalators.

Movement analysis grows like a business

Analysis of the movement of people is growing and becoming big business, especially with the increase in the value of public assets. This means that the infrastructure is developed through complex schemes of cooperation between private and public organizations. As a result, TPUs are turning into commercial spaces for retail, entertainment and business.

Passengers moving around these sites are no longer just on the road. They become potential consumers, moving through the lobbies where retail trade takes place. In the era of “digital intervention” in familiar trading patterns, information on passenger movements has commercial value. The application of data analysis to human flows and its use in the industry of moving people requires careful study to ensure that benefits from it go beyond the commercial benefits. At the same time, mobility data can help our cities, which are becoming ever more vertical, continue to grow up, down and in breadth.