Journal ofAdvanced Transportation, Vol. 32, NO.

3, pp 285-296

A Study of Train Dwelling Time at the Hong Kong

Mass Transit Railway System

William H. K, Lam
C.Y. Cheung
Y.F Poon

This paper investigates the relationship between the dwelling time

of trains and the crowding situations at Mass Transit Railway (h4TR)
stations in Hong Kong. Regression models were established for the
dwelling delays of trains due to congestion at stations, and a simulation
model making use of the Monte-Carlo technique is developed to assess
the reliability of the estimated train dwelling time. Therefore, the
distribution and the confidence interval of the train dwelling time can
be predicted on the basis of observed boarding and alighting
distributions.

Introduction

The Mass Transit Railway is a metropolitan undergroundelevated

railway network comprising three lines with a combined route length of
43.2 kilometers. It is operated by the government-owned Mass Transit
Rail\vay Corporation (MTRC). The nehvork has 38 stations and is sened
by 759 cars assembled into eight-car trains. Each car has five automatic
doors and is connected together to comprise a 40-door train. The average
number of weekday passengers is 2.4 million. In relation to its length, it is
the busiest metro in the world.
During peak periods trains are loaded with 2,500 passengers, operate
at two-minutes intervals and spend about 30 seconds at each stations.
Despite the system's hourly capacity of 75,000 passengers in each &ection,
the peak hour passenger demand has already reached the maximum design
limit in 1988. The introduction of a peak hour congestion fare surcharge
and discount policy during off-peak were prompted to constrain the peak
hour demand to the design limit. This was considered necessary to ensure
passanger safety.
PolyTechnic University, H William H.K. Lam, C.Y. Cheung and Y.F. Poon are at the
Department ofcivil and Structural Engineering, The Hong Kong ong Kong.
Received AugwI 1996. Accepted M a c h 1998
286 William H.K. Lam, C.Y. Cheung and Y.F. Poon

In order to study the crowding effects during peak periods,

mathematical models were established to estimate the dwelling delays of
train due to congestion, and a reliability analysis was performed to assess
the reliability of the estimated train dwelling time.

Data Collection

Observation Survey

To establish mathematical models for estimating the dwelling time of

trains with respect to the crowding situations on station’s platform, the
following data were collected on MTR platforms:

(1) Number olboarding passengers

The numbers of boarding passengers were recorded for each train
during the surveyed period.
(ii) Number of alighting passengers
The numbers of alighting passengers were recorded for each train
during the sweyed period.
(i i i) Arrival, departure and dwelling time of rrains
The arrival and the departure times of trains were recorded in elapsed
second. The arrival time is the time when the train stop at the
platform, the departure time is the time when the train begins to move
away from the station, and the dwelling time is the duration between
the train doors start to open and close completely.

Selection of S w f i e d Stations

There are 38 MTR stations in total. It is necessary to set a selection

criterion in order to choose suitable and representative stations for survey.
For the purpose of h s study, the selection criterion should be the crowding
situation at the station. In the other words, stations with critical crowding
conditions are selected for study.
In view to the levels of congestion, three stations have been
recommended by Mass Transit Railway Corporation (MTRC). These
stations were Quany Bay Station, Kowloon Tong Station and Mongkok
Station. Figure 1 shows the locations of the selected stations.
There is a common characteristic among these three stations. They all
are transfer stations. In these stations, the crowding situation is critical. The
survey carried out in these stations would be appropriate so as to collect
representative data for the critical crowding situations.
A Study of Train Dwelling Time... 28 7

Figure 1. Location of MTR stations

Results

Train Dwelling Time Model

Train dwelling time DT has two components ( S . C. Wirasinghe and D.

Szplett, 1984): (i) a fixed time for opening and closing doors T,, and (ii) door
utilization time T, for boarding and alighmg passengers. The general form is:
288 William H. K. Lam, C. Y. Cheung and Y.E Poon

Door utilization time could be af€ected by a number of factors such as

number of boarding and alighting of passengers, crowding in vehicle and
congestion on platform as well as the number of passengers arriving the
platform. To decide which independent variables should be included in the
model, the technique of correlation and regression analysis was used.
Considering the results of correlation and regression analysis, it was found
that the train dwelling time is mainly governed by the number of boar-
and alighting of the passengers at station, which is:

Tu=f(A1,Bo)

Therefore, to establish a dwelling time model for estimating the train

dwelling time with different crowding situationsat stations, two independent
variables were used, i.e., number of boarding passengers and number of
alighting passengers per train.
Hence, the mathematical model to estimate the dwelling time of trains
in relation to the crowding situations at the three selected stations is given as
follow:
T=C,+C,AI+C, BO (3 )

where
DT is the dwelling time of train in seconds;
A1 is the number of alighting passengers per train;
Bo is the number of boarding passengers per train;
C,is a constant (in seconds); and
C, and C, are coefficients.
The train dwelling time models for the three stations are summarized
in Table 1, together with their coefficients of determination R'.
These train dweiling time models were developed based on the data
collected during the morning peak. It was found at these three stations that
the distributions of passenger boarding and alighting among the train doors
are quite uniform during the survey periods. In Table 1, the regression
constants C,are the fixed time for opening and closing doors at these three
stations. In other words, if there is no passenger boarding on or alighting
from a train, the train will stop with the minimum fixed time.
 Table 1. Dwelling time models for the selected MTR stations

Station Sampleshe C, Cr cz R' Dwelling time model

Qunrry f3ny 44 971 00260 0.0141 0O!KHj or=9.21 t 0.02cjo~1t 0.01rlin0

Kowloon Tong 41 10.1 0.0215 0.0182 0.8681 DT. = 10.1 + 0.0215A/+ 0.0182B0

McwMc 45 11.2 0.0131 0.0183 0.8473 DT= 11.2 + 0.0131AI+ 0.0183Bo

290 William H.K. Lam, C. Y. Cheurig and Y.F. Poon

Comparing the models for the three selected stations, it can be found
that the constants and the coefficients for the number of boarding
passengers are of the same order and approximate to one another.
Therefore, combining all the data collected at the three stations, a
generalized equation for the train dwelling time at MTR stations is given as
below:
DT=10.5 + 0.02 L4I +O.O 1 6Bo (R* 4 . 75) (4)

Similar research for Canada LRT line can be found in Wirasinghe

and Szplett (1984). The coefilcients for alighting passengers (Al) for the
Canada LRT line ranged fiom 0.4 to 1.4 seconds per passenger, while
coefficients for boarding passengers P o ) ranged fiom 1.4 to 2.4 seconds
per passenger. The coefficients obtained for Hong Kong MTR are
comparatively lower than that obtained for Canada LRT as door dimension,
platform configuration and passenger behavior are different.

Dwelling Time Reliabilitw at MTR Stations

With making use of the generalized equation (4) given in 3.1,

the reliability of the train dwelling time can be estimated. The
methodology used for the estimation of the train dwelling time is
described as follows:
(1) Derivation of the probability distribution for the boarding and
alighting passengers on the basis of the survey results.
(2) Estimation of the combined probability of the train dwelling
time.
The estimation of the combined probability of the train dwelling
time makes use of the Monte-Carlo technique (Ross, 1991) to
consider a number of outcomes of the key variables (i.e. boarding and
alighting passengers) randomly selected within their probability
distributions. A convergence test is used to determine the adequacy
of the number of simulations.
By using goodness of fit test, hypothesis tests of the boarding
and alighting distributions with various probability distributions were
performed at 5% level of significant. Hence, the probability
distributions of the boarding and alighting passengers at 95 % level
of confidence are given in Table 2.
A Study of Train Dwelling Time... 29 1

Table 2. Probability distributions of boarding and alighting passengers

m Norm(547.1538.190.1176)

Alighbng Triang(48.92.120.04.390.08)

It was observed that the probability distribution ofthe boardlng passengers

is normal distributed and the alighting passengers is triangular distributed. The
probability distributions of train dwelling time can then be estimated by the
Monte-Carlo simulation using the derived boarding and alighting distribution.
A convergence test was used to determine the number of simulations
required. 1,000, 5,000, 10,000 and 15,000 simulations were carried out to
investigate whether the adequate simulation is achieved. The results are
illustrated in Figure 2.
It can be seen that the curve of 1,000 simulations is different from the
others, while the other three curves are approximate with each other. Therefore,
it was decided to simulate 10,000 times for the reliability analysis of the train
dwelling time. The probability density hnction and cumulative distribution of
the simulated train dwelling time are displayed in Figures 3 and 4 respectively.
The results of the reliability test of the train dwelling time are tabulated in
Table 3.
292 William H.K. Lam, C.Y. Cheung and Y.F. Poon

40

Figure 2. Probability density function of train dwelling time with different

number of simulations

0 25

10 20 25 Y) 40
Train I h o l t i g TCD. (seconds)

Figure 3. Probability density function of train dwelling time

A Study of Train Dwelling Time... ‘93

Figure 4. Cumulative distribution function of train dwelling time

Table 3. Results of the reliability of the train dwelling time

Observed mean train dwelling time (seconds) 23.377
9% confident interval ofthe estimated train dwellingtime 16.513 <train dwelling time < 29.961
Probability of reaching observed mean value 4890
Estimated mean train dwelling time (seconds) 23 178
Probability of reaching estimated mean value 50%
Estimate median train dwelling time (seconds) 23.183

By using Chi-square test, the estimated dwelling time is found to be

normal distributed. When compared the estimated and observed train
dwelling time using Kolmogorov-Smirnov two-sample test (Romano.
1977), it was observed that there is no sigruficant differences between these
two distribution at 95% level of confidence. The generalized model (4)
gives a reasonable estimate for the average train dwelling time, and the
reliability analysis can be used to give a reliable range for the estimated
train dwelling time for assessment.
294 William H.K. Lam, C.Y. Cheung and Y.F. Poon

Conclusions

Due to the saturated conditions at Hong Kong MTR stations, attention

has been given by the planners and engineers to tackle the congestion
problems by using station modelling. Station modelling is particular
important when the demand is greater than the capacity of the station
facilities. In this paper, disaggregated models were developed to estimate
the crowding effects in MTR stations particularly on the platform sides,
while the overall pedestrian flows within the station can now be estimated
by an aggregated pedestrian model e.g., PEDROUTE (Halcrow Fox and
Associates, 1994).
The train dwelling time models provide a reasonable estimate for the
dwelling time of trains at MTR stations. However, it is impossible for the
dwelling time to increase infinitely with the increase in passenger demands.
Train headway also governs the m a . m allowable dwelling time of
trains, an average value of train headway in Hong Kong is around 3
minutes.
A reliability analysis for the train dwelling time model is given to
consider the variation of the key variables (boarding and alighting
passengers) for forecasting of the train dwelling time. With different
boarding and alighting distributions, the distribution of train dwelling time
can be predicted by Monte-Carlo simulation and the confident intend of
the train dwelling time can also be obtained.

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Mr. Eddie So, Transport Planning

Manager, Miss Y. W. Lai, Market Research Officer, and Mr. H. L. Ho.
Transport Planning Assistant of the Mass Transit Railway Corporation
Marketing and Planning Department Transport Planning Section for their
assistance, advice and resources supplied.

References

Halcrow Fox and Associates (1994) User Guide to PEDROUTE version

3.15. Halcrow Fox and Associates.
Romano, A. (1977) Applied Statistics for Science and Industry. Alljn and
Bacon, Inc., Boston.
Ross, S. M. (1991) A Course in Simulation. MacMillan Publishg
Company, New York.
A Study of Train Dwelling Time... 295

S. C. Wirasinghe and D. Szplett (1984) An investigation of passenger

interchange and train s t a n h g time at LRT stations: (ii) estimation of
standing time. Journal ofAdvanced Transportation, 18: 1, pp. 13-24.