Evacuation of metro stations: A review

The present study reviews the evacuation-related studies in metro or subway stations. The review process includes four phases of analysis, namely bibliometric search, descriptive analysis, scientometric analysis and citation network analysis (CNA). In a bibliometric search, 221 peer-reviewed journal articles were selected from different databases. These articles were published between 1984 and 2022 (up to March). In descriptive and scientometric analysis, the distribution of articles over the years, research domains, study methods, the influence of authors, author keywords, documents, and countries are analysed. Then, CNA is done to obtain clusters of different research themes or research domains or research methods. Five different research domains have emerged out of this review. They are, i) simulation studies with required safe evacuation time (RSET) calculations, ii) evacuation risk analysis using different methods, iii) studies related to thermodynamics, iv) evacuation at interchange stations and v) behavioural studies with virtual reality. Finally, the limitations of this review and future research scope are discussed.