Modelling Pedestrian Traffic in and Around Swiss Railways Stations

Abstract

Railway stations are evolving into multifunctional hubs, offering shopping, leisure, and services alongside transport. This shift calls for pedestrian infrastructure planning that goes beyond optimizing transfers to consider the station’s role as a destination. Pedestrian traffic is typically modeled by examining trip generation and link-based pedestrian volumes, using factors like population density, land use diversity, and network centrality.

This study analyzed pedestrian traffic at Lucerne and Uster stations in Switzerland. Lucerne serves a mix of commuters and tourists, while Uster primarily caters to regional travelers. Models built with public data explained 60% of the pedestrian traffic variance in Lucerne and 54% in Uster. However, differences in parameter estimates suggest limited transferability between stations.

The findings underscore the importance of detailed, location-specific data to improve pedestrian traffic models. Additionally, the models show potential for evaluating how improvements in pedestrian infrastructure can better integrate stations into their surroundings, as well as assessing the impact of new urban development on pedestrian traffic and its potential to activate ground floors for commercial use.