Design practices in regards to passenger hazard exposure in open mass transit stations : a benchmarking exercise

Abstract

This study concerns design practices of passenger hazard exposure in Mass Transit Stations that are directly open to atmosphere. The study provides a comprehensive review on the application of existing international and national design codes, standards and guidelines in regards to their ability to mitigate hazards at the Points of Contact (POC) between passengers and station, such as walking surfaces, stairs, lifts, escalators, wayfinding during normal and emergency conditions. The benchmarking exercise used National Thai Station design practices as a baseline in order to identify applicable national codes, standards and guidelines as well as conduct a comparative parallel analysis to their international counterparts to identify, rank and evaluate potential impacts of missing regulation and practices. The study shows that at different points of contact with the station's environment risks exist that must be mitigated and with the pure application of Thai national codes, standards and guidelines the designer is susceptible to making design decisions that do not reduce risk levels. It has been found that more than half the risks in paths of egress in open Thai Mass Transit Stations remain undesirable or intolerable after the design and thus are able cause injuries to passengers and creates growing concerns to operators.