Research on indoor spaces and passenger satisfaction with terminal buildings in China

Abstract In recent years, the construction of terminal buildings has become more and more large in China. One reason is to believe passengers prefer tall spaces, which however, will bring high energy consumption. To study the relationships between the indoor spaces of terminal buildings and passenger satisfaction, this study considered 11 terminal buildings in nine cities in five climate zones in China. The post occupancy evaluation and CATT methods were used to compare the objective indoor environmental quality (IEQ), based on 4149 passenger satisfaction questionnaires obtained from 2014 to 2016. The study results are as followings. First, the IEQ test results show that higher terminal buildings are affected by a higher solar load; moreover, wind seepage will increase the air conditioning load. Second, passengers generally do not believe that a large terminal indoor area requires a high space. The results from the questionnaire survey also show that passengers feel that the space is moderate in the interior at a height of less than 10 m. As such, through acoustic simulation, it is found that in order to have a better acoustic environment, it is recommended the floor height should be less than 8 m. Third, the terminal indoor space height is directly related to the energy consumption; therefore, the height of the space should be reduced in the design phase to reduce energy consumption. The main contribution of this study is to put forward a restriction on the height of terminal buildings in terms of passenger satisfaction and energy consumption.