Researcher: Elaine Gatchalian
Abstract
There has been a constant increase in the number of people riding the MRT-3 per year. Because of this, one of the problems that the Metro Rail Transit Corporation, operator of the MRT, seeks to address is the congestion of passengers inside the train stations and inside the train especially during peak hours. This study aims to simulate the pedestrian activity inside the station and look for ways to lessen the waiting time of people inside the station, thus reducing the volume of traffic inside the station. Initial results showed that changing the number of vending machines and tellers available inside the station does not address the problem of having long queues inside the station. The queues only shift from the area where passengers buy tickets to the platform where they wait for the train, and vice versa. Improvements to the simulation showed that the main problem is not the lack of ticket vending machines or counters, but in the small capacity of the train. The proposed solution based on the simulation is to increase the number of skip trains arriving at the station per peak-hour, but increasing the number of skip trains may entail greater cost. Including the cost model of the system may give more accurate simulation results.