Accimap and crowd flow in urban infrastructure: Case study of Elphinstone road railway station tragedy, Mumbai, India

Abstract

The aim of this article is to show how Human Factors and Ergonomics (HFE) methods can be used to improve urban public infrastructure systems in densely populated countries, such as India. In this case, we use Accimap analysis with crowd flow approaches to inform safety and policy. We demonstrate the need for sociotechnical systemic safety by a case study of accident analysis of the Elphinstone Road railway station stampede. On September 29, 2017, the Elphinstone Road, Mumbai, India, railway platform bridge stampede killed at least 23 and injured 39 other commuters who traveled through the Mumbai Suburban railway. In this study, we understand the accident as it is presented in newspaper articles. We analyze the accident by a sociotechnical accident analysis method called the Accimap. The Accimap method helps by identification of various stakeholders and their interactions in the different levels of hierarchy in a sociotechnical system. This ensures moving away from individualistic and blame‐based accounts of media reporting to a coherent sociotechnical account based on understanding the dynamics of the situation. The findings from the Accimap analysis identify the problem areas in the commuter transit system and provide recommendations. These recommendations range from commuter flow management to enforcement of rules for supporting pedestrian flow. The article concludes with an emphasis on the development of the sociotechnical dimension of public safety and infrastructure from a human factors perspective, above and beyond what is currently practiced in India.

The application of a system‐based risk management framework and social network analysis to the Maritime Autonomous Surface Ship system: Who are the decision‐makers in the wider system?

“…The first step of modeling the UK MASS system was to identify the different actors, organizations, and decision‐makers in the UK MASS system by creating an actor map. Rasmussen's (1997) RMF is often used to analyse accidents, by producing an Accimap to show how a particular event occurred by considering the whole system and to suggest system recommendations to mitigate these risks in the future (Debrincat et al, 2013; Kant & Khobragade, 2022; McIlroy et al, 2021; Parnell et al, 2017; Stanton et al, 2019; Underwood & Waterson, 2014). Part of the Accimap approach is to create an actor map to show the different organizations, actors, and decision‐makers involved in the events leading to the accident and the position of those actors on the RMF (Svedung & Rasmussen, 2002).…”