New method could help keep stampedes at bay

Researchers have proposed a new method for quantitatively analysing the relative value of models for crowd dynamics prediction.

Now, a new study outlines a procedure for quantitatively comparing different crowd models, which also helps to compare these models with real-world data. Vaisagh Viswanathan, a PhD student from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and colleagues demonstrated that these crowd evacuation dynamics models are a viable decision-making tool in safety preparation and planning concerning real-world human crowds.

Viswanthan and colleagues adopted a quantitative study comparing the simulated congestion flow rates, among other things, of three so-called bottom-up models.

These focus on the individual behaviour of school children evacuating their classroom during the May 2008 Sichuan Earthquake.

 

They found that a model referred to as the social force model - based on the idea that pedestrians move in response to fictitious attractive or repulsive social forces - best matches the real-world data showing how pupils exit their classrooms.

They also identified a new macroscopic metric, 'the zoned evacuation time', as the one observable parameter that can best discriminate between these models, and also between models and real-world data.

The study has been published in the EPJ B.