Evaluation and prediction method of railway passenger long-term vibration comfort under complex operating conditions

Abstract

Vibration contributes large increases in railway passenger discomfort during long-term sitting. Discomfort caused by vibration may differ in different operation conditions. This paper conducted field measurements to investigate the interrelationships between the three. Participants completed a 240-min train journey with their whole-body vibration, subjective comfort ratings and train operating parameters being recorded. A large correlation was observed between the estimated vibration dose value and subjective comfort. The relationship that vibration magnitude significantly increases with increasing the train speed and tunnel density was also found and quantified. A vibration exposure limit of 2.08 m/s^1.75 corresponding to the boundary between subjective ratings of comfortable and discomfortable was obtained. Based on the exposure limit and the quantified relationship, a vibration comfort prediction method that can calculate the passenger’s maximum tolerance time under a given operation condition was proposed and may help in determining the optimal operating speed and tunnels distribution to alleviate vibration discomfort.

Practitioner summary: Similar to the guide to effect of vibration on health in current standard, a vibration exposure limit regarding comfort was provided for reference when assessing long-term vibration comfort. Meanwhile, a prediction method was proposed for determining the best train operating speed and tunnels distribution, thereby alleviating railway passengers’ vibration discomfort.

Keywords:

• Whole-body vibration exposure
• vibration comfort evaluation
• operation environment
• prediction method
• train

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 52075553]; the Hunan Science and Technology Innovation Program Project of China [grant number 2022RC3044]; the Hunan Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars of China [grant number 2021JJ10059]; the China Ministry of Education "Human Factors and Efficacy" Industry-University Cooperation Collaborative Education Project [grant number 202107ZCJG05]; the Open Fund of Chongqing Key Laboratory of Vehicle Emission and Energy Conservation of China [grant number PFJN-06]; and the Hunan Postgraduate Research Innovation Project [grant number QL20220023].