Passenger Simulation to Determine Safety Limits During Emergency Decelerations 2002-01-1124

This paper presents a simple passenger dynamics model built to ascertain the minimum safe stopping distance of a Personal Rapid Transit vehicle carrying a seated but unrestrained passenger. The decelerations, under which the passengers would remain in their seats and unharmed, were determined using a simple one degree of freedom mathematical model of a single, seated passenger. The investigation found that the response of passenger depended heavily on their age and sex with an older female passenger being the most easily put in danger. The safe stopping distance had to account for the worst case scenario and the nature of the deceleration profile was crucial with optimum jerk and deceleration rates needing to be determined. These values were found and an “optimum” deceleration profile produced. Initial tests have occurred with encouraging results and development of the model combined with further testing is planned.