• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.407-416
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• 2024

Over the past 20 years, there has been a rapid increase in the number and size of subway stations and underground structures worldwide, and the importance of safety for subway users has also continuously grown. Subway stations, due to their structural characteristics, have limited visibility and escape routes in disaster situations, posing a high risk of human casualties and economic losses. Therefore, an analysis of disaster vulnerabilities is essential not only for existing subway systems but also for deep underground facilities like GTX. This paper presents a case study applying a betweenness centrality-based disaster vulnerability analysis framework to the case of Gwanggyo Central Station. The analysis of Gwanggyo Central Station's base model and various disaster scenarios revealed that the betweenness centrality distribution is symmetrical, following the symmetrical spatial structure of the station, with high centrality concentrated in the central areas of basement levels one and two. These areas exhibited values more than 220% above the average, indicating a high likelihood of bottleneck phenomena during evacuation in disaster situations. To mitigate this vulnerability, scenarios were proposed to distribute evacuation flows concentrated in the central areas, enhancing the usability of peripheral areas as evacuation routes by connecting staircases continuously. This modification, when considered, showed a decrease in centrality concentration, confirming that the proposed addition of evacuation paths could effectively contribute to dispersing the flow of evacuation in Gwanggyo Central Station. This case study demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed framework for assessing evacuation vulnerability in enhancing subway station user safety and can be effectively applied in disaster response and management plans for major underground facilities.