The laboratory was asked to undertake an investigation of the loading of road vehicles onto ferry trains and to determine some of the factors affecting the choice of the tunnel diameter and the area of land required for the terminals,for a proposed channel tunnel.this report describes the experiments conducted to assess pedestrian mobility in the trains.the aim was to consider the practicability of pedestrian movement to toilet and possible vending facilities and movements in emergency situations.the measurements have shown that in the double- deck car-carrying train,quite high walking speeds(5 km/h) can be maintained in the walking spaces alongside the parked cars,even with high levels of pedestrian flow. Movement should also be easy in wagons of singledeck trains in which cars are carried. In wagons carrying motor coaches, the walking space is particularly restricted and has to cater for a greater number of occupants but even so, walking speeds of around 3 km/h can be maintained at the correspondingly higher levels of pedestrian flow obtained. Information was obtained about flows and speeds for various passenger movements and conflicts of movements,out of motor coaches,along wagon walkways,through emergency exits,along the tunnel catwalk and down the adit steps.from this estimates can be made of emergency evacuation times under different conditions.although the experiments were done under simulated conditions there is no reason to believe that the conclusions drawn from them would not be applicable in conditions of actual use. (Author/publisher)
Abstract