Relationship between Escalator Accident Frequency and Commuter Pattern

摘要

Escalator is popular in public space around the world and, as a facility in built environment, has some characteristics with potential hazards. It has continuously moving parts that exposed to user. It demands users to exercise judgment to synchronize their movement with the escalator when stepping on to and off it. The behaviors of some users have implications to safety of other users. This paper attempts to explore the correlation between the commuting pattern of crowd movement and escalator safety. In this study, a consistent pattern of a narrow peak of accident frequency occurs at certain utilization rate on escalator. The pattern also indicates that the accident frequency drops significantly when the utilization rate reaches certain level. The findings suggest development of operational measure to improve escalator safety with reference to the utilization rate on escalator. It also suggests the further research direction regarding the modes of accidents associated with the utilization rate; building a model to correlate the factors of the public space and the escalator density and the accident frequency.