Enhancing Performance of Simulation Models for Rail Transit Dwell Time Considering Passenger Flow Modeling

Dwell time is an important part of the total travel time in urban rail transit which directly impacts the system's reliability and the line capacity. Advancements in microsimulation software packages allow us to develop a detailed model of rail transit stations and test various strategies and their efficiency to improve the dwelling process in urban rail operations. In this study, we developed dwell time models in PTV-Vissim and then, proposed a method to improve simulation results by including passengers’ walking behaviour and their interaction within the transit system. The Vissim's user-friendly graphical interface was used to develop the dwell time models and afterwards, the Vissim models were improved by accessing Vissim objects through the COM interface in Python to enhance the simulation performance. The results show that the basic dwell time model in Vissim can be improved and capture more realistic situations after considering passenger walking behaviours.