New train stock or train services are continually being added to the network in the UK. Their design, in conjunction with European Regulations on train floor and rail height, means there is often a gap between train and platform necessitating at least one physical step. This paper presents the results from a series of experiments testing the time required to board or alight a train across three different gap heights. The experiments were designed to test for the effect of age and luggage type on the time to board or alight. As expected, more steps result in a longer time required to board or alight. More interesting is the effect of age and luggage on time to board and alight with younger people being relatively unaffected by the presence of steps and luggage, whereas both these factors hinder elderly people. The quantification of these effects has implications for accessibility of train services and for train dwell times and can be used by others in the design and planning stages of rail projects.

Accurately predicting train dwell time is critical to running an effective and efficient service. With high-density passenger services, large numbers of passengers must be able to board and alight the train quicklyand within scheduled dwell times. Using a specially constructed train mock-up in a pedestrian movement laboratory, the experiments outlined in this paper examine the impact of train carriage design factors such as door width, seat type, platform edge doors and horizontal gap on the time taken by passengers to board and alight. The findings illustrate that the effectiveness of design features depends on whether there are a majority of passengers boarding or alighting. An optimum door width should be between 1.7 and 1.8 m. The use of a central pole and platform edge doors produced no major effects, but a 200 mm horizontal gap could increase the movement of passengers. There is no clear effect of the type of seats and neither the standbacks between 50, 300 and 500 mm. Further research will look for the relationship between the dwell time and the characteristics of passengers such as personal space.