A Quantitative Evaluation Method of Seat Arrangement for Commuter Railway Vehicles from the Viewpoint of Comfort and Accessibility

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a quantitative evaluation method for seat and door arrangements in commuter railway cars from the viewpoint of passenger comfort and accessibility. Passenger comfort is defined based on passenger's behavior in selecting a seat, with the assumption that every passenger selects the most comfortable seat from those available. The behavior is modeled by a numerical function. The unknown parameters in the evaluation function are determined by experiments using a full-scale mockup with variable seat and door arrangements. The results of the proposed evaluation functions using computer simulations agreed with experimental results. It was found that the seat arrangement depends on the average passenger traveling time. From the evaluated results, the best seat arrangement for commuter trains is discussed and new seat arrangements are proposed.