Estimating Escalator vs Stairs Choice Behavior in the Presence of Entry Railing: A Field Study

Entry railings at escalator/stairs system are intervention measures for passenger flow and play a crucial role in local infrastructure optimization in mass transit stations. This paper presents an analysis of the choice between escalators and stairs with mixed logit models, by considering for the first time the length of the entry railing as one of the crucial parameters. Based on a pilot questionnaire survey, a large-scale field study was conducted in Changsha, China and a sample of 11010 passengers was drawn. The datasets of the whole sample and the grouped samples were applied for model calibrations, respectively. The results indicate that the sensitivity to the railing length show significant heterogeneity in preferences, as well as middle age, luggage carrying and density in front of the escalator (ESDEN). All models are validated to have good prediction accuracy. The mixed model outperforms the binary model in predicting the stairs usage, but slightly overestimates the escalator usage. The analysis reinforces earlier findings showing that lengthening the railing (2.5 ∼ 3.9 m) reduces the sensitivity of individual diversity to dynamic ESDEN, thus further enhancing the predictive ability by 4.35%. Our results provide unique insights for planners and policymakers on designing and managing transportation systems.