Assessment of Level of Service for access and dispersal facilities in a railway terminal

Abstract Indian Railways has one of the most extensive rail systems in the world which covers 68,000 km of rail track, 7318 stations with over 23 million passengers daily, this public transport system is one of the cheapest modes of travel for millions of Indians daily. With such an extensive system in place, railways need to maintain an efficient infrastructure system; it is expected passengers handling to reach 15.20 Billion by FY20, passenger traffic is noted to grow by 1.69 percent year on year. With such a kind of growth in patronage, it profoundly impacts the existing infrastructure. Thus, a constant up-gradation is required in infrastructure. This research study focuses on NSG-1 (Non – Suburban Stations) taking New Delhi station as a case study. The research study is based on the level of service for access and dispersal facilities for the passengers. This paper will analyze the optimum level of service for passengers based on their behavior in a terminal building. This study identifies Equivalent Passenger Units (EPU’s) from passenger behavior and anthropometric studies. EPU’s further is used to evaluate the level of services for the passenger's mobility in the terminal building. Access and Dispersal facilities have been studied for the case study station, and influence zones are created for the same. The outcome of the study is the space assessment l. The methodology can be used to identify the optimum level of services for different categories of the railway station. The space planning norms can be generated and then can be used by consultants for efficient planning of brownfield and greenfield stations at the optimum design service level.