Understanding crowd dynamics can prevent disaster at cultural or sports events;
Physicists investigating a recent crowd disaster in Germany found that one of the key causes was that at some point the crowd dynamics turned turbulent, akin to behaviour found in unstable fluid flows. The study, led by Dirk Helbing from the Risk Center at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zurich, Switzerland, is published in EPJ Data Science(1).
The study focuses on the dynamics occurring when the density of people becomes very high. Physical interactions then inadvertently transfer forces from one body to another, similar to the pressure in dense granular materials. Under such conditions, Helbing and his colleague found that forces in the crowd add up and vary greatly. This makes it hard to avoid a domino effect when people fall. The forces are so high they can become life-threatening. They cannot be controlled by external police efforts. A collective dynamic called 'crowd turbulence' is created.
Contrary to previous thinking, crowd disasters are not always due to crowds becoming uncontrollable because individuals panic. Instead, the authors conclude that amplifying feedback and cascading effects lead to instability in the crowd. This results in a failure of crowd management and control attempts.
The authors also introduce a new scale to assess the criticality of conditions in the crowd designed to help implement preventative measures before the crowd reaches a critical state.
Contacts and sources:
On 24 July 2010, a stampede at the 2010 Love Parade electronic dance music festival in Duisburg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, caused the death of 21 people. At least 510 more were injured.
The Love Parade was a popular and free access festival and parade that originated in 1989 in Berlin. The parade featured stages, but had floats with music, DJs and dancers moving through the audience. The Love Parade in Duisburg was the first edition of the festival that was organised in a closed-off area.Between 200,000 and 1.4 million people were reported to be attending the event and 3,200 police were on hand.
The Love Parade was a popular and free access festival and parade that originated in 1989 in Berlin. The parade featured stages, but had floats with music, DJs and dancers moving through the audience. The Love Parade in Duisburg was the first edition of the festival that was organised in a closed-off area.Between 200,000 and 1.4 million people were reported to be attending the event and 3,200 police were on hand.
Physicists investigating a recent crowd disaster in Germany found that one of the key causes was that at some point the crowd dynamics turned turbulent, akin to behaviour found in unstable fluid flows. The study, led by Dirk Helbing from the Risk Center at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zurich, Switzerland, is published in EPJ Data Science(1).
Love Parade 2010
Credit: Word Press
Never before have crowd disasters been studied by relying on a qualitative analysis of large public data sets. These include media and public authority reports, YouTube videos, Google Earth maps, 360˚photographs, and other Internet sources. Based on this approach, the authors shed some new light on the crowd disaster that occurred at the Love Parade in Duisburg, Germany, in July 2010, leaving 21 dead and over 500 injured.
Never before have crowd disasters been studied by relying on a qualitative analysis of large public data sets. These include media and public authority reports, YouTube videos, Google Earth maps, 360˚photographs, and other Internet sources. Based on this approach, the authors shed some new light on the crowd disaster that occurred at the Love Parade in Duisburg, Germany, in July 2010, leaving 21 dead and over 500 injured.
Credit: Wikipedia
The study focuses on the dynamics occurring when the density of people becomes very high. Physical interactions then inadvertently transfer forces from one body to another, similar to the pressure in dense granular materials. Under such conditions, Helbing and his colleague found that forces in the crowd add up and vary greatly. This makes it hard to avoid a domino effect when people fall. The forces are so high they can become life-threatening. They cannot be controlled by external police efforts. A collective dynamic called 'crowd turbulence' is created.
Contrary to previous thinking, crowd disasters are not always due to crowds becoming uncontrollable because individuals panic. Instead, the authors conclude that amplifying feedback and cascading effects lead to instability in the crowd. This results in a failure of crowd management and control attempts.
The authors also introduce a new scale to assess the criticality of conditions in the crowd designed to help implement preventative measures before the crowd reaches a critical state.
Contacts and sources:
Springer Science+Business Media
Citation: 1. D.Helbing, P.Mukerji (2012). Crowd Disasters as Systemic Failures: Analysis of the Love Parade Disaster. EPJ Data Science 2012, 1:7; doi:10.1140/epjds7
Citation: 1. D.Helbing, P.Mukerji (2012). Crowd Disasters as Systemic Failures: Analysis of the Love Parade Disaster. EPJ Data Science 2012, 1:7; doi:10.1140/epjds7
Interesting blog full of facts and figures, well done!!!
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