  For high-density metro traffic, nowadays the time-variant passenger flow is
the main cause of train delays and stranded passengers. Typically, the main
objective of automatic metro traffic regulation methods is to minimize the
delay time of trains while passengers' satisfaction is not considered. Instead,
in this work, a novel framework that integrates a passenger flow module (PFM)
and a train operation module (TOM) is proposed with the aim of simultaneously
minimizing traffic delays and passengers' discomfort. In particular, the PFM is
devoted to the optimization of the headway time in case of platform
overcrowding, so as to reduce the passengers waiting time at platforms and
increase the load rate of trains; while the TOM is devoted to the minimization
of trains' delays. The two modules interact with each other so that the headway
time is automatically adjusted when a platform is overcrowded, and the train
traffic is immediately regulated according to the new headway time. As a
result, the number of passengers on the platform and their total waiting time
can be significantly reduced. Numerical results are provided to show the
effectiveness of the proposed method in improving the operation performance
while minimizing the passengers' discomfort.
