Assessment of Passenger Comfort, Taking into Account Their

Position in the Cabin and the Design Features of the Car

A. S. Mitrakov

, D. Ya. Antipin

and V. F. Lapshin

Ural State University of Railway Transport, Ekaterinburg, Russia

Bryansk State Technical University, Bryansk, Russia

Keywords: Passenger car, flexible floor, mathematical modeling, passenger comfort, anthropometric dummy, unbalanced

acceleration, net dose of motion sickness.

Abstract: A method for predicting the comfort level of passengers in an electric train car is proposed, taking into account

the design features of the car and the position of passengers in the cabin. The methodology is based on

mathematical modeling of the movement of a railway train along real track irregularities. The elastic

properties of the supporting structure of the body are taken into account on the basis of the inclusion of a

detailed finite element model of the car interior in a solid model of a railway train. In order to clarify the

picture of dynamic effects on the passenger, the finite element model of the car is supplemented with finite

elements describing the resilient properties of the passenger compartment floor. When assessing the comfort

level, an analysis of accelerations obtained on computer models of anthropometric dummies integrated into a

finite element calculation model of the body was performed. The mannequins were located in 26 positions in

the passenger compartment. Two variants of car models are considered in the work: without taking into

account the elasticity of the elements of the passenger compartment and mannequins and with their presence.

The level of passenger comfort was assessed according to the criteria of the percentage of passengers

experiencing discomfort when driving in a curve and a net dose of motion sickness when modeling the

movement of the train along real track irregularities in the range from 20 km/h to the design speed.

Comparison of the results obtained by the traditional method and the proposed in the work showed the

possibility of data refinement up to 10%.

1 INTRODUCTION

One of the main competitive factors in the passenger

transport services market is passenger comfort, the

importance of which increases with increasing

distances. For passenger rail transportation,

improving the level of passenger comfort is a key

direction. Traditionally, passenger comfort is

understood as an external mechanical effect from

vibrations and low-frequency oscillations (CEN

12299 Railway applications — Ride comfort for

passengers — Measurement and evaluation, 2009).

Thus, the prediction of passenger comfort at the

design stage of rolling stock is reduced to determining

the level of external influence. The most widely used

methods for determining the level of external

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influence have been mathematical modeling of the

movement of rolling stock along real track

irregularities.

The traditional approach to modeling the

dynamics of rolling stock is to represent the bearing

parts and interior elements by a system of absolutely

solid bodies (Romain, 2014). In (Ling, 2018; Zhou,

2009), an approach is proposed according to which

the bearing parts can be replaced by pliable bodies

whose elastic properties are described using the finite

element method. The inclusion of pliable bodies in a

general mechanical system with solids has been

called the "hybrid" method (Kovalev, 2009). The use

of the hybrid method makes it possible to increase the

prediction accuracy by up to 80%, for bodies with

relatively low rigidity in the direction of vibrations.

Mitrakov, A., Antipin, D. and Lapshin, V.

Assessment of Passenger Comfort, Taking into Account Their Position in the Cabin and the Design Features of the Car.

DOI: 10.5220/0011576700003527

In Proceedings of the 1st International Scientiﬁc and Practical Conference on Transport: Logistics, Construction, Maintenance, Management (TLC2M 2022), pages 22-27

ISBN: 978-989-758-606-4

 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In the described approaches, the calculation of

passenger comfort is carried out on the basis of data

measured on the bearing parts of the car or elements

rigidly connected to them. The interior of modern

passenger cars is designed taking into account the

need to reduce the vibration impact on a person, so

the floors of the car can be installed on a special

resilient base. The introduction of additional vibration

isolation elements in the interior of the cabin is

usually not taken into account when studying

passenger comfort by traditional methods, which

introduces an error in the results of assessing

passenger comfort at the design stage and may lead to

additional costs for excessive measures to reduce the

level of vibration exposure.

The accuracy of the passenger comfort assessment

depends on his anthropometric features, posture and

location in the passenger compartment (Shorokhov,

2015). At present, modern dynamic models of

anthropometric dummies have been developed

(Polanco, 2011; Perez, 2010), which can be used to

assess the dynamic impact on a person, including on

railway transport. In (Rabinovich, 2006), it is

proposed to use mathematical biomechanical models

in which the human body is represented by one or

more elements having mass and combined elastic-

dissipative bonds to assess a person's reaction to

external mechanical impact. In railway practice,

computer models of anthropometric dummies are

used to assess passenger comfort and vehicle safety

(Antipin, 2017; Antipin, 2017; Antipin, 2018;

Bondarenko, 2021), presented by a set of elements

connected by means of hinges, capable of accurately

reproducing the behavior of the human body under

mechanical stress and measuring forces,

displacements and accelerations in various parts of

the body.

2 MATERIALS AND METHODS

The paper considers several approaches to obtaining

initial data for calculating comfort indicators: on the

load-bearing elements of the body, on the interior

elements of the cabin (floor, seats), on anthropometric

models of dummies.

As comfort criteria, it is proposed to use the

percentage of passengers experiencing discomfort

when moving in the curve - P

and the net dose of

motion sickness - NR. The percentage of passengers

experiencing discomfort P

was calculated in

accordance with the requirements of the CEN 12299

standard (CEN 12299 Railway applications — Ride

comfort for passengers — Measurement and

evaluation, 2009):

𝑃



(

𝐴∙

𝑦





+𝐵∙

𝑦⃛





𝐶

)

+𝐷∙𝜑

 

(1)

Where:

𝑦



– lateral acceleration of the body, m/s

;

𝑦⃛



y⃛



yls – the rate of increase of acceleration of

the body in the transverse direction, m/s

;

𝜑



– body tilt speed, rad/s;

A, B, C, D, E are constants accepted in accordance

with (CEN 12299 Railway applications — Ride

comfort for passengers — Measurement and

evaluation, 2009).

Figure 1: Hybrid dynamic models of an electric train taking into account the elastic properties of the body: a – the head

car; b – a trailer car with a pantograph; c – a trailer intermediate car.

Assessment of Passenger Comfort, Taking into Account Their Position in the Cabin and the Design Features of the Car

The net dose of motion sickness NR was

calculated on the basis of a motion model that takes

into account lateral vibrations and body rotation

(Persson, 2011):

𝑁𝑅 = 𝛽



+(𝛽



∙𝑎

 

+𝛽



∙𝑎

 



)∙

√

𝑡 (2)

where 𝛽



, 𝛽



– coefficients taken in

accordance with the model describing the movement

(Persson, 2011);

𝑎

 

, 𝑎

 

is the root-mean-square frequency-

weighted acceleration for the horizontal transverse

direction and rotation relative to the longitudinal axis.

The values of the motion sickness criterion were

evaluated only for passengers in the "sitting" position

on a scale from 0 to 3, where 0 – "no symptoms", 3 –

"moderate nausea".

A comparative analysis of approaches to

obtaining initial data for calculating comfort

indicators was carried out on the basis of a dynamic

hybrid model of a five-car coupling of a promising

domestic electric train ES2G "Lastochka" (Mitrakov,

2019) (Fig. 1).

The coupling model was developed in the

Universal Mechanism software package using the

subsystem method, according to which cars represent

hybrid subsystems of the first level, consisting of

subsystems of the second level: absolutely solid

subsystems describing the running gear – "bogies ",

and the bodies of cars in the form of elastic

subsystems – "body".

The load-bearing elements of the car body were

described using the finite element method. The

extruded aluminum profile of the bodies and the floor

of the cars were represented by three and four node

shell elements with five nodal degrees of freedom.

The mounted and internal equipment of the car was

modeled by placing special elements in the centers of

weights that allow assigning mass-inertia

characteristics to the nodal point (Fig. 2). The

subsystems of the running parts of the trolley car are

completely similar to those described in (Mitrakov,

2020).

The model verification procedure was carried out

by comparing the dynamic indicators obtained during

the simulation with the data of full-scale running tests

of the ES2G electric train. The following indicators

were considered in the verification: frame forces,

vertical and horizontal transverse accelerations of the

body at floor level in the pivot zone, indicators of

vertical dynamics of the first stage of spring

suspension and smoothness of travel in vertical and

horizontal directions. The maximum discrepancy was

revealed for the indicator of vertical accelerations of

the body of the motor head car - 18.6%, which is an

acceptable value when analyzing the dynamic loading

of the body and allows the possibility of using the

developed computer model to assess comfort

indicators (Mitrakov, 2020).

Increasing the accuracy of comfort forecasting

was achieved by including a resilient floor model in

the developed model. The description of the

connections between the car bodies and the floor

elements in the model was carried out by 1-d elements

of the "Cbush" type. The properties of these elements

were calculated as equivalent elastic-dissipative

characteristics of wooden beams and rubber gaskets

in the floor supports and were set along the three axes

of the car. A solid-state model Dummy Hybrid was

used to determine comfort indicators on models of

anthropometric dummies, describing a man with

anthropometric parameters corresponding to the 50th

percentile (Hybrid III 50th Male Dummy.

Humanetics Innovative Solutions, https: //

humanetics.humaneticsgroup.com; Kobishchanov,

2016). Models of dummies were considered in two

positions "sitting" and "standing". Solid models of car

seats were additionally introduced to accommodate

seated dummies. The dummies were placed in the

Figure 2: Finite element model of the trailer car body.

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CONSTRUCTION, MAINTENANCE, MANAGEMENT

first three cars of the five-car coupling at the most

characteristic points. The total number of dummies is

26, of which 8 are in the standing position, 18 are in

the sitting position. The placement of the dummies in

the car compartments is shown in Fig. 3.

An example of the location of dummies in the

"body" subsystem is shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4: The placement of the dummies in the interior of

the car body: 1 - the supporting structure of the car body; 2

– elastic elements of the floor support; 3- solid-state

elements of the seat; 4 – dummies in the "sitting" position;

5 - dummies in the "standing" position.

Modeling of rolling stock movement was carried

out on sections containing straight and curved

sections of the track with radii of 350 m, 600 m, 1000

m. The speed of movement was taken from 20 km/h

to the maximum allowed on the considered section of

the path.

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Based on the simulation results, the values of the

percentage of passengers experiencing discomfort

when moving in the curve were calculated - P

and

the net dose of motion sickness – NR. The values of

the indicators were determined on the load-bearing

elements of the body; the supporting surfaces of the

floor and passenger seats; anthropometric dummies.

On the load-bearing structure of the body, the

worst values of comfort indicators among seated

passengers are observed when the motor head car is

moving with the implementation of the maximum

unbalanced acceleration at position 1 (Fig. 3a). The

value of the discomfort index in the P

curve was

19.9%, the net dose of motion sickness NR was 1.4.

The best indicators of passenger comfort are observed

in the trailed intermediate car at position 19 (Fig. 3c),

the value of P

was 16.2%, and the value of NR was

1.24. Comfort indicators for standing passengers

depend to a lesser extent on the location of the car in

the train. The lowest values of P

were found in the

Figure 3: The placement of the dummies in the car compartments: a – motor head car; b – trailed intermediate car with

a pantograph; c – trailed intermediate.

1, 2 – models of a dummy in the "sitting in the chair" position of the driver and assistant;

3, 6, 11, 14, 15, 18, 21, 24 - models of a dummy in the "sitting in the chair" position of a passenger at the window;

4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 22, 25 - models of a dummy in the "sitting in the chair" position of the passenger at the aisle;

5, 8, 9, 12, 17, 20, 23, 26 - models of a dummy in the "standing" position of a passenger in the aisle.

Assessment of Passenger Comfort, Taking into Account Their Position in the Cabin and the Design Features of the Car

trailed intermediate car for position 20 - 28.7%, and

the highest for position 26 – 30.5%. The analysis of

comfort indicators revealed their dependence on the

level of unbalanced acceleration. The best comfort

indicators were observed with equilibrium motion in

curves of a larger radius. With a decrease in the radius

of the curve, there was an increase in lateral

acceleration and a deterioration in passenger comfort.

Figures 5, 6 show the relative deviation of the

values of Р

СТ

and NR, obtained taking into account

the elastic support of the floor of the car and

anthropometric dummies, relative to the values on the

metal structure of the body for the positions indicated

in Figure 3.

The analysis of the results showed that taking into

account the support of the passenger compartment

floor on elastic elements, as well as the registration of

accelerations on seats and dummies leads to a

deviation of comfort indicators relative to the values

on the supporting structure of the body:

− decrease in the P

indicator measured at the

floor level by 7-10 %;

− decrease in the P

indicator measured at the

passenger seat level by 1-3 %;

− increase in the P

indicator measured on the

dummy body by 5-10 %;

− decrease in the NR indicator measured at the

passenger seat level by 2.3-3 %;

− increase in the NR indicator measured on the

dummy body by 3.8-10%.

Taking into account the design features of the

compartment, as well as measuring accelerations on

the support surface of the passenger seat, lead to a

Figure 5: Deviation of the P

indicator with different measurement approaches, relative to the values on the supporting

structure of the body.

Figure 6: Deviation of the NR indicator with different measurement approaches, relative to the values on the supporting

structure of the body.

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decrease in the analyzed indicators by 1-10%,

depending on the location of the check-in point. At

the same time, the indicators obtained on the basis of

accelerations registered on the body of the dummy

exceed the values obtained on the metal structure of

the body by 3.8 – 10%, which is explained by the

removal of the data registration point from the floor

level of the car and from the axis of rotation of the

body when it is tilted in curves.

4 CONCLUSIONS

The results obtained indicate the expediency of taking

into account the design features of the passenger

compartment and passenger accommodation in it

when analyzing the comfort level. The proposed

methodology, unlike traditional approaches, allows

you to predict the level of passenger comfort in

various areas of the passenger compartment, which

makes it possible to justify constructive solutions

aimed at increasing its level in local areas. The results

of the work can be applied in the development of

systems for active damping of floor elements and

passenger seats to increase passenger comfort, design

of new types of rolling stock with low natural

frequency of car bodies.

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Assessment of Passenger Comfort, Taking into Account Their Position in the Cabin and the Design Features of the Car