A railway station in Korea has been a part of people's everyday life for more than hundred years, and maintained its function by transforming itself with time. The importance of railroad transportation has drastically reduced due to the emergence of a...
A railway station in Korea has been a part of people's everyday life for more than hundred years, and maintained its function by transforming itself with time. The importance of railroad transportation has drastically reduced due to the emergence of automobile industry, and this led to an insufficient funding of the office of Korean railway. As an solution to this problem, the office of korean railway chose to develop a private invested complex railway station, where commercial and cultural type of multi-functions are integrated by private investment into the railway station. However, since this complex station was invested by private sector, whose objective is to make profit, the complex station design focused more on commercial side rather than public side of the station. Thus, even though the development of the complex station was a success for modernizing the railway station, the lack of public consideration has raised some issues, such as low connectivity to public transportations, low accessibility from vicinity due to ill-planned environment around the station, insufficient accommodation facility for passengers, and unconcerned of regional area etc,
Recent studies related to the complex station focused on the importance and benefits of developing the station and its proximity, the utilization of the station's proximity and achieving better quality of city landscape, and the connectivity of the station to its vicinity. Since those studies can be only a part of the whole discussion of securing the railway station's public function, they are limited in suggesting a plan for recovering the public function of a complex station. Also, there were some studies to find a way to improve the public function of a complex station by investigating public facilities in the station, but those previous works did not reflect the viewpoint of the actual users sufficiently.
This study was performed to analyze factors that would influence the public function of a currently operating complex station. The characteristics of station's public function were first summarized, which was followed by the categorization of potential factors influencing the public function, and finally the influential factors were determined through an analysis. This work is expected to make a contribution to future development of a complex station by suggesting ways to improve the public function of a complex station.
Seoul station, which (1) is well accepted as the representative of all complex stations, (2) has the largest number of users among other stations, (3) both express and normal railways are passing through, (4) and operating as a final destination or as a starting origin, and Yeongdengpo station, which (1) only normal railway goes through, (2) and is utilized as a stopping point, were selected for this study. The "accessibility" from other transportation to the station, the "convenience" for using facilities in the station, the "comfort" level in the station, the "connectivity" between railway transportation sector and commercial sector in the station, and an "overall image" accepted by station users, were categorized as potential factors influencing the public function of a complex station, and these categories were utilized for analyzing the public function of a complex station. According to ""the good is whatever brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people," quoted from a utilitarian philosopher Bentham, the public function was measured from the satisfaction level of an individual station's user. Three types of respondent participated the survey; railway sector user, commercial sector user, and both sectors user. The influential factors of the complex station's public function were determined for each type of respondent.
First, when we analyzed the survey result to evaluate influence of each upper factor (e.g. accessibility, convenience, comfort, connectivity) to the satisfaction level of respondent, the result from both users showed that the satisfaction level depended on "comfort" > "accessibility" > "connectivity." The "convenience", which is the measure of the convenience for using railway transportation related facility, did only show little influence on the public function of the selected complex station. In case of railway sector user respondent, the "connectivity" did not have any influence on the public function, while commercial sector user responded that the "connectivity" plays a major role. Therefore, it can be concluded that depending on the type of user, a standard for evaluating the public function differs from each other. In addition, the "comfort," which represents the comfort level of inside the station, had the greatest influence on the public function.
Second, the analysis result of determining lower factors influence on upper factors, the "connectivity" depended on "subway" > "walkway" > "bus" > "car," the "convenience" showed dependence only to "direction boards," the "comfort" was influenced by "cleanliness" > "size of the station" > "noise" > "restroom," and the "connectivity" had an influential lower factor that represents "the convenience of using the commercial sector since they are integrated with the railway station."
Third, from the analysis of finding relevant lower factors for the public function of the complex station, it was concluded that both users showed "place for meeting people" > "bus" > "restroom" > "direction boards," railway sector user showed "place for meeting people" > "lighting" > "bus," and commercial sector user showed "place for meeting people" > "bus" > "taxi" > "elevator & escalator" > "the convenience of using the commercial sector since they are integrated with the railway station" > "cleanliness." Since "bus" and "taxi" were selected from the "accessibility" upper factor, "elevator & escalator" and "direction boards" were chosen from the "convenience," "cleanliness," "lighting," "restroom" were selected from the "comfort," "the convenience of using the commercial sector since they are integrated with the railway station" was chosen from the "connectivity," and finally "place for meeting people" and "railway function is stronger" factors were selected from "overall image", and showed to have positive relation with the public function of the complex station, it can be concluded that more the satisfaction of these lower factors will ensure more the public function of the complex station.
In summary, previous studies predicted that a complex station would loose public function due to the loss of the "convenience" factor, while this study showed that the "comfort" (station maintenance and environment related factor) and "accessibility" factors have relatively greater influence on the public function. Also, the commercial sector user thinks that the "connectivity" is one of the influential factors on the public function while the railway sector user does not. Since both the railway sector user and the commercial sector user evaluated "place for meeting people" factor to be an influential factor on the public function, the importance of the railway station to play a role as a landmark was identified. However, this study has some limits since it could not connect the survey result to the actual physical or design parameters. Therefore, to secure the public function of currently operating complex station, a future study that focuses on the physical or design parameters is necessary