Assessment of Passenger Obstruction-Related Risk Factors in an Urban Metro Rail Transit System and Their Countermeasures

Modern metro rail systems have problems concerning the safety of passengers and the operational efficiency. Among these, passenger obstruction is a major challenge which refers to the unintentional or intentional interference of passengers in train and platform screen doors, while boarding or alighting from the trains. This paper provides a risk assessment of passenger obstruction at Orange Line Metro Rail Transit System (OLMRTS) in Lahore, Pakistan. This study adopted structured observations, incident analysis and review by experts to control the obstruction cases. Both quantitative and qualitative data analyses of obstruction cases were performed to evaluate the key risk factors associated with passenger obstructions in OLMRTS. Based on the risk assessment framework, prioritized countermeasures with higher risk reduction impacts have been proposed. The effectiveness of the countermeasures was evident in the substantial reduction in obstruction cases by 80%. This research paper will present a reduction in safety risks by reducing the likelihood of incidents and without compromising the passenger service of OLMRTS.