For a major metro system, we performed an observational study of how customers tended to distribute themselves within each vehicle, with a view towards making recommendations about vehicle design (e.g. door, pole, and seat placement), and to reduce station dwell time. The plastic bench seats installed are otherwise highly homogeneous, but we identified special attributes such as adjacency to doors, whether a partition was present, or if the seating was longitudinal, transverse, facing or back to the direction of travel, and discovered patterns in customer seat choice. Results, based on seating- and standing-room occupancy probability statistics, show customers generally prefer seats adjacent to doors, no real preference for seats adjacent to support stanchions, but active disdain for bench spots between two other seats. On cars featuring transverse seating, customers prefer window seats, but have almost equal preference for backward- or forward-facing seats. No demographic differences were found amongst seated passengers, but as load factor increased, men had higher probabilities of being standees compared to women. 90% seat utilization is only achieved at 120% load factor; furthermore, standing customers strongly prefer to crowd vestibule areas between doors (particularly in cars with symmetric door arrangements), and hold onto vertical poles. We recommended that future railcars where possible should ideally be designed with asymmetric door apertures, 2+2+2 partitioned longitudinal seats, and no stanchions or partitions near doorways. This study received substantial attention within the research community and spawned similar studies in other cities of customer seating preferences, including some employing survey and focus group methods, thereby indirectly improving railcar seating layouts in a number of U.S. cities.
Related Publications/Presentations:
Observed Customer Seating and Standing Behavior and Seat Preferences on Board Subway Cars
