A Preliminary Study on Earthquake Evacuation Planning for Urban Underground Railroads

In this study, we studied earthquake evacuation planning for urban underground railroads. According to our survey on the morning peak-hour operation of one of the underground railroads in Tokyo Metropolitan Area, it is highly likely that some passengers must stay in congested vehicles for a long time after a large earthquake happens. Our questionnaire survey on the perception and behavioral intention of the underground railroad passengers indicated that they mostly perceived the underground railroad as not safe when a large earthquake happened, and that once some passengers started to evacuate from underground to ground level, there might be many followers, which could induce secondary disaster because of the limited space within underground stations. Our results also implied that if the authority can improve the safe image of the railroad, the situation might be improved dramatically.