RETAIL IN STATION

Railway have been with us for almost 200 years, it is hard to get away from the legacy of the fire and smoke of its early engines, the wooden and other combustible materials of the carriages, and the combustible materials in the station themselves. When you add the fact that stations are where lots of people gathered, it no wonder the center of restrictive legislation, enhanced fire and life safety practices, all of which makes the stations and its tracks, the most policed built form this side of nuclear power plants.
Nevertheless, there has been many fire and arson attack in stations around the world in the last few decades, all of which makes this topic interesting.

©Andy Barr/London Underground

The Kings Cross fire (1987), which started in the ticket hall and then to the wooden escalators, killed 31 people.

2020 NYC Subway Arson, which fortunately had limited life lost

More than 100 die in South Korean subway arson. Photo ©AP to the right

DNA OF STATUTORY BASIS

In the beginning!!! Well! There were limited, or now laws in the beginning. Lets start with NFPA 130. The NFPA set-up a Committee in 1975, in order to prepare and issue design guidelines for train stations. In 1983, the first edition of NFPA 130, Standard for Fixed Guideway Transit Systems was published. Please see here, if you want to know the history & development of NFPA 130.

@NFPA. NFPA 130, Standard for Fixed Guideway Transit and Passenger Rail Systems

NFPA 130, endeavours to keep stations public areas physically separated from "non-transit" spaces (e.g., shops, restaurants) by a fire-resistant barrier for at least 3 hours,etc. This likely aimed to minimize the risk of fire spreading from external businesses into the transit system.

Recent updates to the "non-transit" clause have become more relaxed. NFPA 130 now allows for the inclusion of non-system occupancies within the transit area, as long as they are not directly connected (contiguous) to the transit system itself. While this opens doors for innovation and potentially enhances user experience with additional amenities, it also raises concerns. NFPA highlights the need for special considerations beyond their 130 standards to be necessary to ensure fire safety in these integrated spaces.

So, it would be good to review how this retail/shop spaces has been implemented in some systems?

One final note. One could argue that transit systems are essential public services, often managed by government entities. As one can see in my commercial section, many goverment do subsidise their transit system and perhaos do not need to pressurise the operators to be fiscally prudent, generate revenue?

RETAIL STRATEGY EXAMPLES

@Singapore LTA. Diag Commercial Spaces in Stations

@MLIT. Commercial Spaces in Tokyo Metro

Referenced from GB51298 Std for Fire Protection Design of Metro. China

Diag. Bangkok UG Station Mall

The transit retail strategy shown here are from Asia. (Singapore, top- left, Tokyo, Top right, China, top, Bangkok, left, Hong Kong, bottom). Traditionally most statutory basis for transit system prefers non-transit facilities to be fully segregated from the transit spaces. NFPA 130 also specific recommends these special considerations.

Hence, the Singapore, China and Thailand retails are painfully separated from the transit passenger spaces, via their remote disposition, segregated from the station public spaces. The Hong Kong model is starkly different, is bang right in the main concourse. Which is a key fulcrum of the Hong Kong ToD, as well as it exceptional Business case. The Tokyo metro design is akin, yet the principles are simpler than HK strategy. The diagram 1 section below, illustrates the principle.

To achieve the Hong Kong MTR retail exceptionalism, there are various retail MEP, fire strategy innovations implemented.

The HK Retail / ToD Exceptionalism!

Fig. Notional location of the retails on the MTR concourse

Fig. Three sections through MTR station retail

As discussed elsewhere, Concourse and Retail spells the success of HK ToD & MTR.

The substantial retail in HK MTR are highly Fire Engineered, to mitigate the risk of fire. The below three sections gives a timeline development of this system. Firstly, all the three section is based on a separate compartment for the retails/shops, the first two has a detector and a suppression system. The last section, (Practiced at the moment) upgrades the system by introducing a dedicated/independent smoke extraction system. Few shops together (Say 100m2 area), share one smoke zone. The interesting one to note is the 'Perforated Security Shutter', which not only allows the boundary smoke (Shutter area) to be sucked back into the retail cabin (Air pressure difference -higher in the cabin) but also allows for the makeup air to be pulled from the outside concourse area.

The concourse is a platform that connects the station to multiple high destinations, enabling 'Hyper ToD', that Hong Kong is. The retails in the station are not only the pit stop for retail passengers, but they also enables the transit system to be operationally solvent. Please see the section on economics of stations to have an appreciation for this model.

Retail Code

It is hard to find too many codes for retail areas in transit stations. The Japanese system seems to be simple, the Hong Kong system possibly too onerous? One could state that for the latter, the volume of such spaces in transit spaces may require 'bells and whistles'? One is also reminded of the BS code 9992, which classifies retail as non-destination, almost an appendage to the transit passenger's path...in which case the code is more forgiving.

Hence it may be a good opportunity for systems to look at the BS9992, appended with BS9999, or local building codes, to give a transit retail system with a suitable fire safety protection basis.

As a caveat, it is not within my patience, or technical knowledge, to do a detailed code comparison, or even undertake a Risk Assessment Framework to make this paragraph more authoritative. But for sure, even the HK MTR standards may benefit from such detail study?

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