Chapter 6

Allahabad Jn. Railway Station

Allahabad Jn. railway station is one of the divisions under North Central Railway zone of
Indian Railways. It is located at Prayagraj district of Uttar Pradesh, India. This railway
station is built in an area of 28.4 hectares at an elevation of 316.804 meters from sea level.
Being a junction, this railway station handles many trains that arrive from and leave to
different directions. It is the second busiest station in the state of Uttar Pradesh of India
in terms of train frequency. The Allahabad Jn. railway station experience huge influx
of pilgrims during the auspicious occasion of Kumbh Mela. The railways make special
arrangements to handle this religious gathering. Figure 6.1 depicts georeferenced view of
the area covered by Allahabad Jn. railway station.

Figure 6.1: Georeferenced view of Allahabad Jn. railway station

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 The railway administration of Allahabad Jn. railway station plays an important role
to operate train traffic and manage crowd of pilgrims at the station during Kumbh Mela
festival. Pilgrims arrive at the railway station in large numbers from different places for this
auspicious occasion. Handling such crowd at railway platforms is a difficult, challenging
and a non-trivial task. As mentioned earlier in Chapter 1, railway administration runs
Kumbh Mela special trains in addition to the regular trains to manage the arrival and
departure of pilgrims. Table 17 lists the number of Mela special trains that operate
from Allahabad Jn. railway station during the peak days of this festival. In this 49
days festival, there are six special days when expected influx of pilgrims is more than
other days. Table 17 also lists the number of Mela special trains that operate from other
railway stations of Prayagraj city during peak days of this festival. This data is taken
from the manual provided by the Kumbh Mela authorities of railway department. Other
than Allahabad Jn. there are three railway stations located at different parts of the city
from where pilgrims arrive and depart. These are, Naini railway station, Jhunsi railway
station and Prayag railway station. In this work, we have focused on the management of
Allahabad Jn. railway station which is the main source of arrival.

Table 17: List of numbers of Mela special trains and there carrying capacity
Allahabad Total Carrying
Name of Naini Jhunsi Prayag Total
Jn. Mela capacity
auspicious railway railway railway carrying
railway Special of each
days station station station capacity
station Trains train
Makar
30 10 2 6 48 2850 136800
Sankranti
Paush
20 10 2 6 38 2850 103800
Poornima
Mauni
40 10 11 14 75 2850 213750
Amavashya
Basant
30 10 3 7 50 2850 142500
Panchami
Maghi
30 10 3 6 49 2850 139650
Poornima
Mahashi-
20 10 3 6 39 2850 111150
vratri

To manage both the incoming and outgoing crowd of pilgrims, railway administration
utilize the space available at both ends of Allahabad junction station. Rear side of the
station is utilized for the exit of pilgrims coming from different railway zones of the country.

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Front side of the railway station is used as main entrance from the city. The entrance
includes four holdup areas termed as “enclosures”. Pilgrims that return to railway station
after taking holy dip are directed towards these enclosures. They are guided by the railway
personnel to wait in one of the enclosures until train arrives.

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

Figure 6.2: View of crowd of pilgrims exiting the enclosure (Image reference - provi-
ded by railways); a) Crowd of pilgrims waiting inside one of the enclosure to exit, b)
First group of pilgrims exiting from the enclosure, c) First group of pilgrims exited
from the enclosure and d) Second group of pilgrims exiting from the enclosure

All the pilgrims that have to return back towards the same direction of journey stay
in one enclosure. The notable point here is that each enclosure is designated for specific
direction. Pilgrims are instructed all the way from enclosure to the specified platform
number to follow a defined path. All these enclosures have maximum accommodation
capacity of approximately 6000 pilgrims. However, they are released according to the
carrying capacity of the train. The carrying capacity of Kumbh Mela special trains is
2850 pilgrims. These many pilgrims are guided to exit and move along the designated
route to reach at the specified platform for boarding the train. The boarding procedure
is also defined properly. Pilgrims are directed to board the train in a sequential manner,
starting from coach number 1 to last coach. In this way, the railway personnel manage and

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guide all the pilgrims that are returning back to their home town. Images in Fig. 6.2(a)-
(d) depicts the view of crowd of pilgrims waiting in the enclosures and there movement
towards the exit. Figure 6.2(b) shows the first group that is being released from the
enclosure to reach the platform. Figure 6.2(c) shows that all pilgrims of first group has
exited the enclosure and Fig. 6.2(d) shows the second group that is being released from
the enclosure just after the first group exited completely. In these images, persons with
orange jackets are the railway personal that make a manual barrier with their hands to
restrict the pilgrims and for facilitating group wise exit.
In the recent Kumbh Mela held at Prayagraj from 15 January 2019 to 4 March 2019,
we were associated with the Allahabad division of NCR under a project. The project
was intended to design an effective way, to analyze and measure the time consumed in
movement of crowd from a particular enclosure to any platform. In this chapter, an Agent
Based Model which evaluates the time consumed by the crowd of pilgrims to move from
the holdup area, reach a specified platform and board the train is described. Synthetic
agents are modelled as pilgrims that perform different actions in the virtually created
environment of Allahabad Jn. railway station. This model incorporates gathering and
movement scenarios of the pilgrims that arrive at the station and wait for the train to
come. With the help of this model, railway authorities evaluated their crowd movement
plans before actual deployment. This helped them to estimate required frequency of trains
at various platforms and accordingly customize their plans.
The chapter is structured as follows: Section 1 presents the framework of our approach.
Section 2 presents the details of case study and field survey. Section 3 describes our model
with the help of ODD (Overview, Design concepts and Detail) protocol. In Section 4,
the simulation interface and different experiments are explained. Section 5 present the
simulation results and Section 6 talks about the verification and validation of this model.

6.1 Our Approach

To achieve these objectives, whole task is performed in three main steps. Initially, we
did field survey of the railway station and had meetings with the railway authorities to
collect information. Then we have created our Agent Based Model. Finally, we performed
different experiments to evaluate and compare the results. Figure 6.3 depicts the whole
framework of our approach.

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 Figure 6.3: Framework of our approach

6.2 Case Study and Field Survey: Allahabad Jn.

Railway Station
We have performed field survey to understand overall layout of Allahabad Jn. Railway
Station. We have taken measurements of various station components with the help of Ro-
adometer (Stanley BPSTL10789-1-77-174 Plastic Meter Counter Measuring Wheel ). The
station components we measured are entry/exit gate, platform, stair, escalator, elevator,
Foot over Bridge (FoB), subway, shop, pathway for passengers etc. The measurement
includes count, dimensions and positioning of these components. Dimension and count
of different Platforms, stairs, FoBs, and enclosures (passengers hold-up area) are listed in
Table 18 to 21.
In addition to these, Table 23 lists the count of various components present on different
platforms. Measurement of various components differs based on the space availability on
the platforms. Measurements of some of the components are figured out in Table 24.
There exist many other platform components as well that are obstacles in the movement
of pedestrians such as Lift, Power house, Dustbin etc. which we have not listed here.

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 Table 18: Dimensions of different platforms
Platform Length Width
No. (meter) (meter)
1 652 15
2-3 568 15
4 580 15
5 618 15
7-8 585 11
9-10 535 10

Table 19: Number of Tracks and Distance between platforms

Tracks
Distance between
Between Platforms between
platforms (meter)
platforms
1 2 2 7.62
3 4 3 11.43
5 7 4 15.24
8 9 8 35.61

Table 20: Dimensions of different Foot over Bridge (FoBs)

Height Width Length
FoBs
(meter) (meter) (meter)
FoB-1 70 7.5 132
FoB-2 70 12.45 165
FoB-3 70 8.37 127
FoB-4 70 5.67 100

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 Table 21: Dimensions of different enclosures
Width of
Number
Distance Gates
S/No. From To of Gates
(meter) (meter)
Entry Exit Entry Exit
VIP
136 1 1 5.5 5.5
1 enclosure-1 Gate P1
FoB-2 85
2 enclosure-2 FoB-2 20 1 1 5.5 5.5
3 enclosure-3 FoB-3 55.70 1 1 5.5 9.9
4 enclosure-4 FoB-3 25.70 1 1 5.5 9.9

Table 22: Dimension of Stairs connected to FoBs and landing on different platforms
Landing
Stairs Step Count Stairs Length Step Width Step Height Step Length
(meter) (meter) (meter) (meter) (meter) count width
Stairs of all
Platforms
52 10-15 0.5 0.5 4.5 1 or 2 2
Connected to
FoBs

Table 23: Count of various components on different platforms

Water
Platform Catering Water Book
vending Toilet Urinal
No. stalls booths stall
machines
1 5 1 9 5 0 1
2-3 5 2 10 0 0 0
4-5 4 2 17 3 2 1
7-8 7 1 16 0 1 0
9-10 5 1 12 1 1 0

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 Table 24: Dimension of various components
Length Breadth
Obstacle
(meters) (meters)
Catering stalls 3.7 2.6
Water vending machines 2.65 1.70
Water booths 3.35 1.68
Book stall 3 2.6
Toilet 10.5 3.7
Urinal 10 2.5
Electricity room 5 4.7
TC Seating room 4 2.1
Roof Pillars (square) 0.97 0.7
Seats/Benches 2.06 1.45
Escalator 9.75 2.79

We had several meetings with the railway administration to know about their plan of
actions especially in managing huge influx of passengers. In addition to this, they provided
measurements of different components from their record books. They also assisted our
team on the field to collect measurements and provided many other relevant information
during the survey. Allahabad Jn. railway station has two entry sides and can be reached
via two adjacent roads on both sides. The main entrance is from city side via Leader Road
and another entrance is from civil lines side via Nawab Yusuf Road.
Figure 6.4(a)-(e) depicts the real view of platforms, inside view of enclosure, one of
the FoB and shape of different components of the platforms, respectively. Starting from
top left of the image in Fig. 6.4(e), following components are shown: three different types
of Water Booth, Book Stall, two types of roof pillars (with and without platform where
passengers can sit) and sitting chairs. There are many other type of components having
different dimensions, but only few are shown in this image.

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 (a) (b)

(c) (d)

(e)

Figure 6.4: View of different components of Allahabad Jn. railway station (Image
reference’s provided by railways); a) View of Platform 3, b) View of Platform 7 &
8, c) Inside view of enclosure, d) View of FoB-2 and e) View of different platform
components

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6.3 Description of Our Agent Based Model based
on ODD Protocol
In this section, detailed description of our Agent Based Model is presented with the help of
ODD protocol [124]. The ODD description can be broadly categorized into three sections
namely Overview, Design concepts and Details. This model simulates the crowd gathering
scenarios at Allahabad Railway Jn. and boarding procedure of passengers deployed by
the railway administration during Kumbh Mela festival.

6.3.1 Model Overview

This section provides the fundamental details of our model. The basic components of this
model are entities, different states of entities, temporal and spatial scaling, and scheduling
of model processes.

Purpose
The purpose of this model is to create virtual environment of Allahabad Jn. railway station
to simulate the crowd gathering scenarios of passengers and their boarding procedure after
the arrival of train. The model is implemented

• To simulate boarding of passengers according to the strategies those are followed by

railway personnel during Kumbh Mela festival. Simulate the arrival and departure
of trains.

• To simulate boarding of passengers according to our modified strategies.

• To evaluate total time consumed by all the passengers to move from waiting area
and board the train.

• To compare these strategies with respect to total time consumed by all the passen-
gers.

Entities, State Variables and Scales

Entities and State Variables There are two types of model entities. First are those
entities that change their action and state during the simulation whereas, the other entities

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do not change their state in the entire simulation. Passengers and Trains are the entities
that act, react and interact within the environment. They change their states on the
basis of actions such as movement, waiting, boarding etc. Passengers wait on the platform
for train to arrive whereas, trains wait for the passengers to board. Passengers move on
the platform and trains move on the assigned tracks. Similarly, there are many other
actions of passengers that define their state and behaviour. Infrastructure elements are
those entities that never change and create the virtual environment. Different components
such as gates, platforms, alongside tracks, enclosures, escalators, stairs and various other
structures on the platforms of railway station are the infrastructure elements.

Scale This model includes both spatial and temporal scaling. In spatial scaling, real
size of physical elements is reduced to model scale whereas, in temporal scaling, model
time is mapped to the real time mode. To represent each element of railway station in the
virtual environment, their real size is scaled to 1meter = 10pixels at 100% zoom level. In
this zoom level, each grid cell is square of 10 * 10 pixels. Total environment is designed
within a frame size of 1440 cells X 12480 cells (width X height). To map AnyLogic [39]
model time to the real time mode, 1 model time unit is taken equivalent to 1 second.
A simulation run depends on the time consumed by the pilgrims to board the train and
depart.

Process Overview and Scheduling

There are several processes that initiate different actions of entities and bring changes in
their state. Passengers are the main entities of this model that perform four main actions
as given below:

Waiting In the simulation, when passengers arrive at railway station they directly go
to a holdup area and wait there. They continue to wait until they are asked to exit from
it.

Exiting Passengers exit on a click event. Groups of passengers waiting in front of

holdup area or near the gate, exit first. They are then followed by another group of
passengers and exit the holdup area. This way all the passengers (back-to-back) exit out
of the holdup area.

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Moving Passengers move from the gate of waiting area to that platform on which train
has arrived. While moving, they avoid obstacles such as wall, seat, any physical structure,
other pilgrims, etc.

Boarding To board they first select a coach and thereafter select a gate and get into the
car. Selection of coach is defined on the basis of boarding strategy deployed by railways.
Boarding procedure is defined in three ways 1) from front end of the train (first coach
attached to engine), 2) from rear end of the train (last coach from the engine) and 3) from
any coach placed at the middle of the train. Railway uses the first procedure to board the
train. The carrying capacity of first and last coach is 75 passengers, whereas for all the
other coach it is 150 passengers.
The movement and boarding procedure of passengers is a one-way flow and it happens
on a dedicated path. When passengers change their set of actions, they enter to a new
state. Figure 6.5 depicts the state-transition chart with different possible states of pilgrims
and reasons of transitions. At each time step pilgrim is performing one of the actions.

(a) (b)

Figure 6.5: State-transition chart of synthetic agent in the whole procedure; a) state
transition chart of passengers and b) transition description

Train Arrival and Departure The other entity of the model is Train. Each train
contains 20 cars that arrive on the track placed alongside those platforms on which pilgrims
wait to board. Trains arrive and depart on the button click event. Background procedures
that contain “inject()” and “stopDelay()” functions are invoked. After all the passengers
board, the train is driven away on a “depart()” function call. The time spent by a rail

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car in the station depends on the button click event. The Pedestrian Library and Rail
Library of AnyLogic [39] works together in this model. The operation logic of arrival and
departure of trains are modelled using the Rail Library, whereas the process of boarding
is modelled with Pedestrian Library. Figure 6.6 depicts the operational logic of train and
different elements of Rail Library that are utilized to model the logic.

Figure 6.6: Operational logic of train

6.3.2 Design Concepts

This section describes basic concepts that are incorporated to design this model and define
the behaviour of model entities. The model has eight design concepts that are described
in the following sub sections.

Basic Principle
This model incorporates basic principles of physical, social and psychological factors that
affect the behaviour of pilgrims. AnyLogic [39] has a pedestrian library which helps to cre-
ate any agent with these principles. Initial speed, comfortable speed, physical dimensions
of human body and human locomotion, and gender are considered as the basic parame-
ters to define a passenger. In this model, movement of passengers is according to social
force model [73, 98, 163]. The social force model represents physical interactions among
the passengers and the environment. Passengers move in the continuous space, analyse
the physical environment and accordingly interacts with the surrounding objects. They
choose the shortest path, avoids collision with obstacles such as roof pillars, wall, different
physical structures and other passengers.

Emergence
The main result obtained from this model is time consumption in the movement of crowd
of passengers from a holdup area to reach a specific platform. There is a defined procedure
of crowd movement from source (holdup area) to destination (platform). There are four

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different source areas and different destination platforms. The platforms have different
designs with respect to the placements of station components such as shops, vending
machines, water booth etc. Therefore, time consumption in the movement of crowd varies.

Adaptation and Objective

The model simulates movement of crowd of passengers in a consistent environment. Pas-
sengers simply move from the holdup areas, reach platform and board the train. They
exhibit a normal behaviour pattern as observed in real systems. Therefore, passengers
exhibit an indirect objective-seeking behaviour in this model. They mainly aim to board
the train and wait for their turn to exit from the holdup area.

Sensing
When the passengers move, they sense the presence of object on their way. They react
according to the type of object it is. If the object is an obstacle like wall they change their
movement direction whereas if it is another passenger they decelerate their moving speed.
If the object is an escalator they step on it.

Interaction
Passenger agents interact with the rail agents to board the rail cars. Before the arrival of
passengers the train is placed on the platform. When passengers are allowed to exit the
holdup area, they reach platform and select coach to board the rail car. Train waits until
all the passenger board it. They do not have to wait for train. In this process, passenger
transit from “Move state” to “Board state”.

Stochasticity
This model incorporates stochasticity with the help of a pseudo-random number generator
function “Random”. This function is based on Linear Congruential Generator algorithm.
Initial speed, comfortable speed and physical dimension of agents are uniformly distributed
between a minimum and maximum range. Stochasticity exists in the selection of gates
of a rail car in the boarding procedure. Passengers that exit the holdup area are also
randomly selected.

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 Observation
This model is needed to analyze and observe the best possible way which can minimize
the time consumption to board the train. The output values helps to identify the factors
that may affect the board time. Initial data required are the source selection, number of
passengers to exit, destination platform and boarding direction.

6.3.3 Details
In this section, the required initial settings and all the main processes of this model are
discussed in detail.

Initialization
Values of initial speed, comfortable speed, physical dimensions of human body and hu-
man locomotion are initialized and uniformly distributed between a min and max range.
Physical dimension is set between (0.3, 0.6) which helps to create different size of pil-
grims. The gender parameter categorizes them into male and female. According to the
gender and size of pilgrims, comfortable speed (movement with proper physical speed) is
set between (0.3, 0.7). This creates required spacing between the pilgrims. While moving,
passengers accelerate or decelerate according the density on their way. Besides, initializing
these basic parameters some input parameters are need to be initialize before model run.
These input parameters are 1) arrival rate, 2) number of passengers that have to exit from
holdup areas, 3) platform selection for passengers, 4) procedure selection for boarding, 4)
platform selection for train arrival and 6) direction of train (north or south). The values
of these input parameters are based on data provided by railways. To set the elements of
environment values taken are based on data (refer Section 2) whereas for the movement
of synthetic agents initial values are chosen arbitrarily based on the fundamental concepts
of pedestrian dynamics.

Input Data
This model does not take input from any external sources, such as data files, time-series
data. Neither, it imports other models to represent processes.

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 Submodels
Key processes in this model are defined for the virtual agents that mimic the action
and behaviour of Kumbh Mela passengers in real world. These passengers act and react
under the guidance of railway personnel. Therefore, processes are defined according to
the way railway personnel guide and direct the passengers. At each time step, virtual
agents perform one of the actions. Other than these processes, one process is defined for
the calculation of time consumption. Processes and its definitions are explained in this
section.

Submodels that define behaviour of passengers

Waiting Passengers that arrive from the Leader road enters the holdup area. They
select a place inside the area and waits there. There are four holdup areas named as:
enclosure 1, enclosure 2, enclosure 3 and enclosure 4. The wait ends on free() function
call.

Algorithm 6.1 : Algorithm for exit of passengers from enclosures

1: procedure exit( )
2: Object-array: create an array to store pedWait objects
3: p: create an array of all the passengers at the enclosure gate
4: i: index of the current passenger
5: counter: get count of how many passenger have freed from the enclosure gate
6: PassengerCount: total number of passenger that are allowed to freed
7: index: leave the passengers in groups
8: a & b: create arrays of all passengers to compare their y coordinate
9: ◃ sort the Passengers according to their y coordinate
10: if PassengerCount <= p.length then then
11: for index = 1 → 6 do
12: for i = 0 → P assengerCount ∗ (index/5) do
13: free ( passenger p[i] )
14: if counter > 50 then
15: wait for 10 seconds
16: reset counter to 0
17: end if
18: end for
19: end for
20: end if
21: end procedure

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 The function free (passenger [i]) (Line 13 in Algorithm 6.1), interrupts command for
the specified passenger and causes it to exit the enclosure.

Exiting When the exit event is triggered (button press), they exit from the waiting
zone and follow a defined path to reach the platform. Exit procedure is defined according
to the strategy followed by personnel. They first ask those pilgrims that are near the gate
(first row), to exit and this creates space in the front part of holdup area. Then after
pilgrims waiting in the second row are asked to exit and row by row all pilgrims exit (Line
10 to 16 in Algorithm 6.1). Number of passengers that are to exit is set by the user as
input parameter. Algorithm 6.1 presents the pseudocode of exit() submodel.

Moving Passengers that are waiting in enclosure 1 are directed to go to Platform 1

through the VIP entrance gate. Those waiting in enclosure 2 are directed towards FoB-2
to reach Platform 7 or Platform 8. On the other hand, pilgrims waiting in enclosure 3 are
directed towards FoB-3 to reach Platform 4 or Platform 6. Those waiting in enclosure 4
are directed to go to either Platform 2 or Platform 3 via FoB-3. The structure of railway
station may be referred from Fig. 6.8. Passengers move with certain velocity, maintain
distance with others, avoid possible collision due to obstacles.

Movement of synthetic agents is modelled with the help of Pedestrian Library of Any-
Logic [39]. This tool incorporates Social Force Model [73, 70] to maintain the movement
behaviour of pedestrians. They moves with certain velocity, accelerate and decelerate,
maintains distance with others, avoid obstacles etc. Social Force Model proposed by [73]
mainly describes two dominant force that occurs due to the pressure in overcrowding situ-
ations. These two forces are termed as attractive force and repulsive force. A combination
of socio-psychological [92] and physical forces [60, 146] is proposed by [69]. These forces
influence the behaviour of pedestrian in crowd and is formulated as:

∑ ∑
mi dwi /dt = mi ((wi0 (t)e0i (t)) − wi (t))/τi + fij + fio (6.1)
j(̸=i) o
dwi
In the above equation, change in position dt at any time instance t of a pedestrian
wi (t)
is determined by desired speed wi0 (t) and direction e0i (t) of individuals where, τi is the
(wi0 (t)e0i (t))
deviation of the actual velocity and τi is the desired velocity which results in the
personal driving force fi (t). In addition to change in velocity of a pedestrian moving in
crowd, his/her behaviour is also determined by the interactions with other individuals and

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 ∑ ∑
immovable obstacles like wall. Herein, j(̸=i) fij and o fio represent interaction forces
between two individuals, and pedestrian and obstacle, respectively. This interaction force
further consists of physical and psychological forces. Physical force is the resultant force
of two counteracting bodies which creates compression and sliding friction. Psychological
force is the resultant of repulsive interaction between each other.

rdij − distij
fijpsy = Ai exp( )nij (6.2)
Bi
fijphy = kg(rdij − distij )nij + Kg(rdij − distij )△wij
t
tij (6.3)

In these equations, rdij = rdi + rdj are the radii of pedestrians i and j; distij is the
distance between them; nij is the normalized vector pointing from pedestrian j to i ;
kg(rdij − distij )nij is the counteracting force; Kg(rdij − distij )△wij
t t is the frictional
ij

force and Ai , Bi are the constants. Herein, △wij

t is the tangential velocity difference and

tij is tangential direction. Thus, the total force fij exerted by a pedestrian j or obstacle
o to pedestrian i is calculated as shown in the equations below.
radi − distiO
fij = Ai exp( ) + kg(rdij − distij )nij + Kg(rdij − distij )△wij
t
tij (6.4)
Bi
OR

fij = fijpsy + fijphy (6.5)

Similarly, the physical and psychological forces between a pedestrian and the obstacle
is mathematically represented as:

psy rdi − distio

fio = Ai exp( )nio (6.6)
Bi
phy
fio = kg(rdi − distio )nio + Kg(rdi − distio )(wi .tio )tio (6.7)

In these equations, rdi is the radii of pedestrians i ; distio is the distance between
pedestrian and the obstacle; nio is the direction perpendicular to obstacle ; and tio is
tangential direction to it. Therefore, the corresponding interaction force fio between the
pedestrian and obstacle is calculated as shown in the equations below:

rdi − distio
fio = Ai exp( ) + kg(rdi − distio )nio − Kg(rdi − distio )(wi .tio )tio (6.8)
Bi
OR
psy phy
fio = fio + fio (6.9)

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Boarding On the platform they are further directed to follow a defined path to board
the train. The carrying capacity of each coach is fixed. In the first and last coach, 75
pilgrims can board while the capacity of all other coaches is 150 pilgrims. Besides all these,
railways boarding procedure is also well-defined. To avoid accumulation at the entrance
point, passengers are directed to the coach which is farthest from the entry gate.

Algorithm 6.2 : Algorithm for boarding of passengers

1: procedure boarding( )
2: p: create an array of all the passengers at the enclosure gate
3: i: index of the current passenger
4: n: get count of how many passengers arrived
5: j: index of the coach
6: for P [i] = 1 → n do
7: ◃ ‘n’ number of passengers
8: input direction
9: switch direction do
10: case f orward
11: assert(select coach placed at first from engine of train to start boarding)
12: case backward
13: assert(select coach placed at last from engine of train to start boarding)
14: default
15: assert(select any coach of the train to start boarding)
16: end switch
17: for Chi = 1 → 20 do
18: ◃ ‘Chi ’ number of coach
19: select a gate to get up the coach with uniform-discr(0,1) probability
20: stand near the gate and wait for turn to get up the coach
21: time taken to get in between uniform(5.0,8.0) seconds
22: end for
23: end for
24: end procedure

Normally, the farthest coach is placed either of the two end of train. Passengers start
boarding the coaches from one end to the other. In addition to the implementation of rai-
lways procedure of boarding the train, two other ways are also implemented. Therefore,
user has to provide input for the selection of procedure, (Line 7 of Algorithm 6.2). There-
after, passengers select the coach to start boarding the train, (Line 9, 11, 13 of Algorithm
6.2). After passengers reach the selected coach, it randomly select one of the gates, wait
for its turn and get inside the coach, (Line 17, 18, 19 of Algorithm 6.2).

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To simulate and invoke the defined procedures, Pedestrian flow control elements of Any-
Logic [39] are utilized. The flow control is implemented as follows:
The pedSource blocks are used to generate crowd of pilgrims from different direction
for each enclosure. Arrival rate can be increased or decreased with the help of sliders
available on the model interface according to the need. The pedWait blocks are used
to keep the pilgrims waiting in the enclosures. The waiting of pilgrims is cancelled by
using a function call. This causes the pilgrims to move to pedGoto blocks followed by
the pedChangeGround or pedEscalator block. The pedGoto block defines the destination
after exit from the waiting area. The pedChangeGround block helps the pilgrims to
enter the platform from outer ground area of the station while PedEscalator block moves
pilgrims to FoBs. In our model, escalators are turned off by and this stops the motion
of escalator steps. Pilgrims move on their own in these escalators. In the flow sequence,
pedSelectOutput block are used for the selection of platforms. Then after, SelectOutputIn
and SelectOutputOut blocks are used by pilgrims to select either the first or last coach
of the train. They then start boarding train from the selected coach after which pilgrims
move to the pedSink block and is removed from the system. Though such gatherings are
at high risk of panic situations but we have only incorporated normal crowd scenarios in
this model. This is because our main objective is to evaluate the time consumed by the
pilgrims to board the train.

Algorithm 6.3 : Algorithm for the calculation of time consumption

1: procedure timeConsumption( )
2: initialization: variable “Size”, “ETmax (P [i])”, “Tstart ”, “STmax (P [i])” and
“Tconsumed ” are set to 0
3: Size = T imeM easureEnd.dataset.size()
4: Tstart = T imeM easureEnd.dataset.getXM in()
5: ETmax (P [j]) = T imeM easureEnd.dataset.getY M ax()
6: STmax (P [j]) = 0
7: for i = 1 → Size do
8: ◃ ‘n’ number of passengers
9: if ETmax (P [j]) == ETmax (P [i]) then then
10: STmax (P [j]) = STmax (P [i])
11: Ttotal (P [j]) = (ETmax (P [j] + STmax (P [j])
12: end if
13: Tconsumed = (Ttotal (P [j]) − Tstart )/60
14: end for
15: end procedure

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 Algorithm 6.3 presents the pseudo code for the procedure timeConsumption(). The
TimeMeasureEnd is one of the blocks of Process Modeling Library of AnyLogic [39]. It
measures the time agents spend on specific operation or certain parts of the process.

• The three variables ‘size’, ’ETmax(P[j])’ and ‘Tstart’ are used to get the number of
passengers that are to exit from holdup area, end time of the jth passenger who took
maximum time to board and initial time when passenger starts exiting, respectively.
(Line 4,5,6 of Algorithm 6.3)

• Variable ‘STmax(P[j])’ is calculated to get the start time of jth passenger who
took maximum time to board. (Line 9, 10 of Algorithm 6.3). Addition of the two
variables STmax(P[j]) and ETmax(P[j]) gives total time ‘Ttotal (P[j])’ taken by the
jth passenger to board the train. (Line 11 of Algorithm 6.3)

• Difference between ‘start time’ and ‘total time consumed by the passenger who took
maximum time’ results the time consumed ‘Tconsumed’ by all passengers to board
the train. (Line 14 of Algorithm 6.3)

6.4 Simulation Environment and Experiments

This model consists of a virtual environment of Allahabad Junction railway station and
behavioural scenarios of Kumbh Mela passengers at the station. AnyLogic [39], a powerful
Agent Based modelling tool is utilized to create this model. It provides an effective way
to perform comprehensive analysis of any real world scenario. This tool includes standard
libraries to design and simulate model elements. AnyLogic provides a Pedestrian Library
to create physical environment, simulate pedestrian flows. Further, this tool provides
several probability distribution functions to define stochastic behaviour of agents. All
these features make it a prominent tool to be used for Agent Based Modelling.
To map AnyLogic model time to the real time mode, we have taken 1 model time
unit for 1 second. We have performed experiments by increasing simulation speed scale
to 10x which means that 10 model time units correspond to 1 second. As our model is
stochastic, the random seed value is set fixed to 1. This initializes the pseudorandom
number generator with 1 for each model run, thus the model runs are reproducible.

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6.4.1 Model Interface
The model is comprised of two view sections: 1) 2D view of the virtual environment and
2) main interface view. The interface view further includes 1) 3D view of the railway
station, 2) control elements to set input parameters and 3) textual display of observation
parameters.

Virtual Environment It is a near to real layout of Allahabad Junction railway station.

We have incorporated different station components to build the environment. These com-
ponents are entry/exit gates, different platforms, alongside tracks, 4 enclosures, 3 FoBs
and various types of structures on the platforms. In all the platforms of Allahabad railway
station there exist many types of structures such as book stalls, tea stalls, roof pillars,
water vending machine, chairs and many others. We have utilized different space markup
elements of pedestrian library and presentation elements to create the environment. For
example Rectangular Area, Wall, Service With Lines, Escalator Group, Railway Tracks
etc. are used to configure environment.

Figure 6.7: Model interface view

Figure 6.7 depicts the model interface view while, the 2D view of overall layout of

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the railway station is shown in Fig. 6.8. In the interface, input parameters and output
parameters are grouped in rectangles filled with cyan color. Arrival rate of pilgrims,
Number of pilgrims to exit from the enclosure, Pilgrims movement direction, Platform
selection and Train arriving direction are the input parameters that can be set according
to the type of experiment. Numbers of pilgrims inside each enclosure, Numbers of pilgrims
that reached the platform from the enclosure and Total time taken by all the pilgrims to
board the train are the output parameters.

Figure 6.8: 2D view of overall layout of the Allahabad Jn. railway station

All the station elements are assigned a number to regulate their plan of actions conve-
niently. Four rectangles drawn on the top of 2Dview are the waiting areas (4 enclosures)
where pilgrims rest until they are asked to leave the area. The left most rectangle is
enclosure1 and the rectangle created in right most part is enclosure 4. Two rectangles in
between first and fourth enclosures are enclosure 2 and 4. The longest red color rectangle
placed in the middle of whole station area is FoB-2. Second longest red color rectangle
placed to the right of FoB-2 is FoB-3. Other two are FoB-1 and FoB-4. To open the exit
of enclosures user intervention is required. User clicks a button which activates a back-
ground process defined for exit from the enclosure. Rectangles in gray and red colors are
the platforms and Foot over Bridges respectively. All the rectangles over each gray area
(platforms) filled with blue, yellow, pink, magenta and many other colors are the different
structures. FoBs are open either from both of its sides or only one side (left/right) to
reach a platform via stair, escalator or ramp. The broad lines alongside the platforms are
the tracks. The actual size of each element of the virtual environment is designed at a
scale of 1meter = 10pixels within a frame size 14440 X 12480 (width X height).

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6.4.2 Experiments
Different experiments are performed to evaluate the time consumed in the movement of
crowd of passengers from a holdup area to reach platform and board the train. Experi-
ments are divided into three sets based on the selection of coach from which passenger
starts boarding. There are two ends of train and passengers can board from any of the
end. The end of the train which is farthest from the entry gate is considered as End-1.
Eventually, other end of the train is End-2 and if compared with End-1 then it is nea-
rer to the entry gate. More precisely, distance between entry gate and End-1 is longer
than that of End-2. Platforms of the railway station are designed in such a way that this
consideration is applicable for all of them.
The experiments are categorized into three sets based on the boarding procedure. In
the first set of experiments, passengers board sequentially starting from the coach which
is at End-1 of the train. This way of coach selection is considered as the forward direction
boarding. In the second set of experiments, passengers board sequentially starting from
the coach which is at End-2 of the train. This way of coach selection is considered as
the backward direction boarding. In the third set of experiments, passenger board in a
hybrid manner which means that some of the passengers board from backward direction
and others from forward direction. First set of experiments is according to the real plan
regulated by railway personnel which reflects the suggestions given by [123]. In [123], the
algorithms and rules of existing social force model are improved to reflect actual movement
of the pedestrian flow with line features. They suggested that if the channel is designed
as lengthy as possible, pedestrian flow density can be reduced. This can also avoid the
blockage of pedestrian flow and improve the utilization of channels.
The other two sets of experiments are other ways of boarding the train suggested by
us. These additional ways are incorporated in the model to experiment and analyse the
differences in time consumption with actual boarding procedures. Each set of experiment
is further divided into seven sections on the basis of number of passengers that exit the
holdup area. The numbers of passengers for exit are selected in between 1 to 2580. These
experiments are done for the movement of passengers from enclosures 1, 2, 3 and 4 to
platform 1, 7, 4 and 2, respectively.

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 First set of experiments
In the first set of experiments, passengers board from forward direction. In platform 1,
entrance is from the VIP gate which is approximately 850 meters far from End-1 of the
train and 150 meters from End-2. Therefore, in forward direction, the boarding starts
from End-1 and continue in a sequential manner till End-2 as depicted by the arrows in
Fig. 6.9 (a).

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Figure 6.9: Sketch of forward direction boarding at each platform

Entrance in platform-2 is through down stairs of FoB-3. The distance from last step
of down stairs to End-1 of the train is 670 meters whereas distance from End-2 is 300
meters. Hence, boarding starts sequentially from End-1 and finished at End-2 in the
forward direction as shown by the arrows in Fig. 6.9 (b). Similarly, the forward direction
boarding procedure is implemented at platform 4 and platform 7 as depicted in Fig. 6.9
(c) and (d). Apart from all these, one important concern is the movement of crowd of

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passengers. They moves in multiple-line queue all along the way from source to destination.
There may be 2 lines, 3 lines or 4 lines depending upon the area available on the particular
platform, stairs or ramp (slope).

Second set of experiments

In the second set of experiments passengers board from backward direction. In platform
1, the distance between entry gate and End-2 is less; therefore, passengers board from
End-2 and continue till End-1 in a sequential way. Arrow head in Fig. 6.10(a), depicts
the movement of passengers in backward direction. Similarly, the movement on platform-
2, platform-4 and platform-7 to board the train in backward direction are depicted in
Fig. 6.10(b),(c) and (d).

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Figure 6.10: Sketch of backward direction boarding at each platform

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 Entrance in platform-4 is similar to entry on platform-2 which is through down stairs
of FoB-3. Distance from the entry point of platform-4 to End-2 of the train is 180 meters
whereas distance from End-1 is 820 meters. Thus, at platform-4 passengers select End-2
for backward direction boarding. Platform- 7 is reached via ramp of FoB-2. End-1 is at a
distance of 890 meters from the entry point on Platform-7 whereas End-2 is 90 meters far
from the ramp. Thus the boarding starts from End-2.

Third set of experiments

In the third set of experiments, passengers board from both ends. In platform 1, some
passengers board from End-2 and others from End-1. Whichever end they board from, it
is in sequential manner (one coach after other) as depicted in all the diagrams of Fig. 12.

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Figure 6.11: Sketch of hybrid way of boarding at each platform

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 The hybrid way of boarding at each platform by the passengers is shown in Fig. 6.11(a),(b),(c)
and (d).

6.5 Results and Discussion

Simulation results of different experiments are discussed in this section. The results are
compared on the basis of time consumed by the passengers in three different boarding
procedures. The comparison is done for the four different scenarios of movement of pas-
sengers from their wait area to the assigned platform for boarding. The four scenarios
are

• Waits in enclosure 1 and move to platform 1 for boarding

• Waits in enclosure 2 and move to platform 7 for boarding

• Waits in enclosure 3 and move to platform 4 for boarding

• Waits in enclosure 4 and move to platform 2 for boarding

The movement path and boarding procedure are already discussed in this section.
From each enclosures fixed number of passengers are released. They move in a directed
path to reach the assigned platform and board the train. The comparisons between the
three boarding procedures are presented with the help of graphs. In these graphs, x-
axis represents number of passengers and y-axis represent time consumed by them in the
movement.

1. Waits in enclosure 1 and move to platform 1 for boarding In the first

scenario, passengers are released from enclosure 1 to board the train standing at platform
1. Simulation results obtained are shown in the graph of Fig. 6.12. When 400 passengers
are released and board in a backward direction the time consumption is only 16 minutes
while, in forward and hybrid directions they took 33 minutes and 32 minutes, respectively.
Although, if 2850 passengers are released and utilizes backward direction boarding
procedure the time consumption is 66 minutes whereas, in forward and hybrid direction
boarding it is 39 minutes and 35 minutes, respectively. Likewise, it may be observed
that if number of passengers released is less than 1200 then deploying backward boarding
procedure results a lesser amount of time consumption. But, if number of passengers

137
released is more than 1200 then hybrid way of boarding results a lesser amount of time
consumption. In this scenario, there is a significant difference in the time consumption
between backward and hybrid boarding procedures. This suggest that if larger number of
passengers have to board the train from platform 1 then boarding in a hybrid manner is
an efficient way in terms of time consumption.

Figure 6.12: Time consumed by the passengers in different boarding procedures of

first scenario

2. Waits in enclosure 2 and move to platform 7 for boarding In the second

scenario, passengers are released from enclosure 2 to board the train standing at platform
7. Simulation results obtained are shown in the graph of Fig. 6.13. When 400 passengers
are released and board in a backward direction the time consumption is 29 minutes while,
in forward and hybrid directions they took 42 minutes and 44 minutes, respectively.
Although, if 2850 passengers are released and utilizes backward direction boarding
procedure the time consumption is 98 minutes whereas, in forward and hybrid direction
boarding it is 68 minutes and 50 minutes, respectively. Likewise, it may be observed
that if number of passengers released is less than 1200 then deploying backward boarding
procedure results a lesser amount of time consumption. But, if number of passengers
released is more than 1200 then hybrid way of boarding results a lesser amount of time
consumption. In this scenario also, there is a significant difference in the time consumption
between backward and hybrid boarding procedures. This suggest that, if larger number
of passengers are to board the train from platform 7 then boarding in a hybrid manner is
an efficient way in terms of time consumption.

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Figure 6.13: Time consumed by the passengers in different boarding procedures of
second scenario

3. Waits in enclosure 3 and move to platform 4 for boarding In the third

scenario, passengers are released from enclosure 3 to board the train standing at platform
4. Simulation results obtained are shown in the graph of Fig. 6.14. When 400 passengers
board in a backward direction the time consumption is 22 minutes while, in forward and
hybrid directions they took 32 minutes and 35 minutes, respectively.

Figure 6.14: Time consumed by the passengers in different boarding procedures of

third scenario

Although, if 2850 passengers are released and they utilized backward direction boarding
procedure the time consumption is 68 minutes whereas, in forward and hybrid direction

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boarding it is 48 minutes and 58 minutes, respectively. Likewise, it may be observed
that if number of passengers released is less than 1200 then deploying backward boarding
procedure results a lesser amount of time consumption. But, if number of passengers
released is more than 1200 then forward direction boarding results a lesser amount of time
consumption. In this scenario, there is a significant difference in the time consumption
between backward and forward boarding procedures. This suggest that, if larger number
of passengers are to board the train from platform 4 then forward direction boarding is
an efficient way in terms of time consumption.

4. Waits in enclosure 4 and move to platform 2 for boarding In the fourth

scenario, passengers are released from enclosure 4 to board the train standing at platform
2. Simulation results obtained are shown in the graph of Fig. 6.15. When 400 passengers
board in a backward direction the time consumption is only 18 minutes while, in forward
and hybrid directions they took 28 minutes and 27 minutes, respectively.

Figure 6.15: Time consumed by the passengers in different boarding procedures of

4th scenario

Although, if 2850 passengers are released and they utilized backward direction boarding
procedure the time consumption is 96 minutes whereas, in forward and hybrid direction
boarding it is 41 minutes and 64 minutes, respectively. Likewise, it may be observed
that if number of passengers released is less than 1200 then deploying backward boarding
procedure results a lesser amount of time consumption. But, if number of passengers
released is more than 1200 then forward direction boarding results a lesser amount of time

140
consumption. In this scenario also, there is a significant difference in the time consumption
between backward and forward boarding procedures. This suggest that, if larger number
of passengers are to board the train from platform 2 then forward direction boarding is
an efficient way in terms of time consumption.
Our observations with respect to time consumption in the boarding procedures for all
four scenarios are summarized in the following Table 9. In this table abbreviation used
are E1 for enclosure-1, E2 for enclosure-2, E3 for enclosure-3, E4 for enclosure-4, P1 for
Platform-1, P2 for Platform-2, P3 for Platform-3 and P4 for Platform-4.

hhhh
Table 25: Summary of the observations
hhhh No. of Passengers
hhh Less than 1200 More than 1200 2850
hh hhhh
Boarding Procedure h hhhh passengers passengers passengers
Efficient for all
Backward direction Not efficient Not efficient
scenarios
Efficient for 3rd Efficient for 3rd
& 4th scenarios & 4th scenarios
Forward direction Not efficient
E3 - P4 E3 - P4
E4 - P2 E4 - P2
Efficient for 1st Efficient for 1st
& 2nd scenarios & 2nd scenarios
Hybrid Not efficient
E1 - P1 E1 - P1
E2 - P7 E2 - P7

6.6 Verification and Validation of the model

For model verification, simulation experiments that include releasing of different number
of passengers from the enclosure (hold-up area) to different platforms and their boarding
were run. The behaviour of synthetic agents modelled as pilgrims (passengers of Kumbh
festival) captures the fundamental traits of boarding movement. The model is helpful
for the analysis of different boarding procedures with respect to time consumed in the
movement of passengers from source to destination and board the train.
To validate this model, simulation results are compared with the empirical values
provided by the railway administration. Table 12 present the values for time consumption
in the movement of passengers from different enclosures to respective platforms and board.
The values presented in this table are the results of forward direction boarding by 2850
passengers as deployed by the railway personal. Meaning of the abbreviations used in this
table are E1 for enclosure-1, E2 for enclosure-2, E3 for enclosure-3, E4 for enclosure-4, P1

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for Platform-1, P2 for Platform-2, P3 for Platform-3 and P4 for Platform-4. Figure 6.16
depicts the graphical representation of this comparison.

Table 26: Comparison between simulation results and empirical values

Empirical Statistics Simulation Results
Scenarios (minutes) (minutes)
Minimum Maximum Minimum Maximum
E1-P1 35 50 39 54
E2-P7 75 90 68 96
E3-P4 45 60 48 64
E4-P2 40 55 41 52

Figure 6.16: Comparison between simulation results and empirical values

This shows the significance and applicability of our model. In addition to the Allahabad
Jn. railway station, another site for which evaluations are performed is Kumbh Mela site.
Since, the festival is mainly organized at the bank of rivers so evaluation of following
parameters is also important: 1) time to reach the bathing areas from different sources
of arrival, 2) density at different bathing areas and 3) management of density at bathing
areas. This is required for rectification which is required to make their plans more effective.
Evaluation of these parameters are required to identify prevalent shortcomings of their
movement plans and bathing strategies.

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