Crowd Disasters as Systemic Failures: Analysis of the Love Parade Disaster

Each year, crowd disasters happen in different areas of the world. How and why do such disasters happen? Are the fatalities caused by relentless behavior of people or a psychological state of panic that makes the crowd 'go mad'? Or are they a tragic consequence of a breakdown of coordination? These and other questions are addressed, based on a qualitative analysis of publicly available videos and materials, which document the planning and organization of the Love Parade in Duisburg, Germany, and the crowd disaster on July 24, 2010. Our analysis reveals a number of misunderstandings that have widely spread. We also provide a new perspective on concepts such as 'intentional pushing', 'mass panic', 'stampede', and 'crowd crushs'. The focus of our analysis is on the contributing causal factors and their mutual interdependencies, not on legal issues or the judgment of personal or institutional responsibilities. Video recordings show that, in Duisburg, people stumbled and piled up due to a 'domino effect', resulting from a phenomenon called 'crowd turbulence' or 'crowd quake'. Crowd quakes are a typical reason for crowd disasters, to be distinguished from crowd disasters resulting from 'panic stampedes' or 'crowd crushes'. In Duisburg, crowd turbulence was the consequence of amplifying feedback and cascading effects, which are typical for systemic instabilities. Accordingly, things can go terribly wrong in spite of no bad intentions from anyone. Comparing the incident in Duisburg with others, we give recommendations to help prevent future crowd disasters. In particular, we introduce a new scale to assess the criticality of conditions in the crowd. This may allow preventative measures to be taken earlier on. Furthermore, we discuss the merits and limitations of citizen science for public investigation, considering that today, almost every event is recorded and reflected in the World Wide Web.Comment: For a collection of links to complementary video materials see http://loveparadevideos.heroku.com/ For related work see http://www.soms.ethz.c

Simulating crowd evacuation with socio-cultural, cognitive, and emotional elements

In this research, the effects of culture, cognitions, and emotions on crisis management and prevention are analysed. An agent-based crowd evacuation simulation model was created, named IMPACT, to study the evacuation process from a transport hub. To extend previous research, various socio-cultural, cognitive, and emotional factors were modelled, including: language, gender, familiarity with the environment, emotional contagion, prosocial behaviour, falls, group decision making, and compliance. The IMPACT model was validated against data from an evacuation drill using the existing EXODUS evacuation model. Results show that on all measures, the IMPACT model is within or close to the prescribed boundaries, thereby establishing its validity. Structured simulations with the validated model revealed important findings, including: the effect of doors as bottlenecks, social contagion speeding up evacuation time, falling behaviour not affecting evacuation time significantly, and travelling in groups being more beneficial for evacuation time than travelling alone. This research has important practical applications for crowd management professionals, including transport hub operators, first responders, and risk assessors

Development of virtual cities models during emergencies

L'abstract è presente nell'allegato / the abstract is in the attachmen

Modelling And Simulation Of Movements And Behaviours In Large Crowd Using Cellular Automata.

Kumpulan ramai (crowd) adalah satu daripada fenomena yang lumrah dalam kehidupan kita. Reka bentuk bangunan dan tempat-tempat awam hendaklah menjamin tahap keselamatan minimum yang diperlukan serta keselesaan terhadap kesesakan orang ramai. Crowds are one of the ubiquitous phenomena in our life. Design of buildings and public places should therefore guarantee a minimum level of safety, comfort and throughput for the crowd

Human behaviour in emergency situations: comparisons between aviation and rail domains

This article presents a comparative review of the knowledge base regarding human behaviour in emergencies for both aviation and rail domains. Generic models of human behaviour in emergency situations are introduced and specific attention is then focussed on methods of behaviour prediction, exhibited behaviours in emergencies and methods of aiding evacuation across both modes of transport. Using established knowledge from the aviation domain, it has been possible to make observations and comparisons about the rail domain. Traditionally, the aviation domain has been a major focus of research attention and this is used to inform and interpret the rail domain. By drawing comparisons across these domains for human behaviour in emergency situations, the observations are discussed along with recommendations for future policies/planning for emergencies and future research areas

Walking with virtual humans : understanding human response to virtual humanoids' appearance and behaviour while navigating in immersive VR

In this thesis, we present a set of studies whose results have allowed us to analyze how to improve the realism, navigation, and behaviour of the avatars in an immersive virtual reality environment. In our simulations, participants must perform a series of tasks and we have analyzed perceptual and behavioural data. The results of the studies have allowed us to deduce what improvements are needed to be incorporated to the original simulations, in order to enhance the perception of realism, the navigation technique, the rendering of the avatars, their behaviour or their animations. The most reliable technique for simulating avatars’ behaviour in a virtual reality environment should be based on the study of how humans behave within the environment. For this purpose, it is necessary to build virtual environments where participants can navigate safely and comfortably with a proper metaphor and, if the environment is populated with avatars, simulate their behaviour accurately. All these aspects together will make the participants behave in a way that is closer to how they would behave in the real world. Besides, the integration of these concepts could provide an ideal platform to develop different types of applications with and without collaborative virtual reality such as emergency simulations, teaching, architecture, or designing. In the first contribution of this thesis, we carried out an experiment to study human decision making during an evacuation. We were interested to evaluate to what extent the behaviour of a virtual crowd can affect individuals' decisions. From the second contribution, in which we studied the perception of realism with bots and humans performing just locomotion or varied animations, we can conclude that the combination of having human-like avatars with animation variety can increase the overall realism of a crowd simulation, trajectories and animation. The preliminary study presented in the third contribution of this thesis showed that realistic rendering of the environment and the avatars do not appear to increase the perception of realism in the participants, which is consistent with works presented previously. The preliminary results in our walk-in-place contribution showed a seamless and natural transition between walk-in-place and normal walk. Our system provided a velocity mapping function that closely resembles natural walk. We observed through a pilot study that the system successfully reduces motion sickness and enhances immersion. Finally, the results of the contribution related to locomotion in collaborative virtual reality showed that animation synchronism and footstep sound of the avatars representing the participants do not seem to have a strong impact in terms of presence and feeling of avatar control. However, in our experiment, incorporating natural animations and footstep sound resulted in smaller clearance values in VR than previous work in the literature. The main objective of this thesis was to improve different factors related to virtual reality experiences to make the participants feel more comfortable in the virtual environment. These factors include the behaviour and appearance of the virtual avatars and the navigation through the simulated space in the experience. By increasing the realism of the avatars and facilitating navigation, high scores in presence are achieved during the simulations. This provides an ideal framework for developing collaborative virtual reality applications or emergency simulations that require participants to feel as if they were in real life.En aquesta tesi, es presenta un conjunt d'estudis els resultats dels quals ens han permès analitzar com millorar el realisme, la navegació i el comportament dels avatars en un entorn de realitat virtual immersiu. En les nostres simulacions, els participants han de realitzar una sèrie de tasques i hem analitzat dades perceptives i de comportament mentre les feien. Els resultats dels estudis ens han permès deduir quines millores són necessàries per a ser incorporades a les simulacions originals, amb la finalitat de millorar la percepció del realisme, la tècnica de navegació, la representació dels avatars, el seu comportament o les seves animacions. La tècnica més fiable per simular el comportament dels avatars en un entorn de realitat virtual hauria de basar-se en l'estudi de com es comporten els humans dins de l¿entorn virtual. Per a aquest propòsit, és necessari construir entorns virtuals on els participants poden navegar amb seguretat i comoditat amb una metàfora adequada i, si l¿entorn està poblat amb avatars, simular el seu comportament amb precisió. Tots aquests aspectes junts fan que els participants es comportin d'una manera més pròxima a com es comportarien en el món real. A més, la integració d'aquests conceptes podria proporcionar una plataforma ideal per desenvolupar diferents tipus d'aplicacions amb i sense realitat virtual col·laborativa com simulacions d'emergència, ensenyament, arquitectura o disseny. En la primera contribució d'aquesta tesi, vam realitzar un experiment per estudiar la presa de decisions durant una evacuació. Estàvem interessats a avaluar en quina mesura el comportament d'una multitud virtual pot afectar les decisions dels participants. A partir de la segona contribució, en la qual estudiem la percepció del realisme amb robots i humans que realitzen només una animació de caminar o bé realitzen diverses animacions, vam arribar a la conclusió que la combinació de tenir avatars semblants als humans amb animacions variades pot augmentar la percepció del realisme general de la simulació de la multitud, les seves trajectòries i animacions. L'estudi preliminar presentat en la tercera contribució d'aquesta tesi va demostrar que la representació realista de l¿entorn i dels avatars no semblen augmentar la percepció del realisme en els participants, que és coherent amb treballs presentats anteriorment. Els resultats preliminars de la nostra contribució de walk-in-place van mostrar una transició suau i natural entre les metàfores de walk-in-place i caminar normal. El nostre sistema va proporcionar una funció de mapatge de velocitat que s'assembla molt al caminar natural. Hem observat a través d'un estudi pilot que el sistema redueix amb èxit el motion sickness i millora la immersió. Finalment, els resultats de la contribució relacionada amb locomoció en realitat virtual col·laborativa van mostrar que el sincronisme de l'animació i el so dels avatars que representen els participants no semblen tenir un fort impacte en termes de presència i sensació de control de l'avatar. No obstant això, en el nostre experiment, la incorporació d'animacions naturals i el so de passos va donar lloc a valors de clearance més petits en RV que treballs anteriors ja publicats. L'objectiu principal d'aquesta tesi ha estat millorar els diferents factors relacionats amb experiències de realitat virtual immersiva per fer que els participants se sentin més còmodes en l'entorn virtual. Aquests factors inclouen el comportament i l'aparença dels avatars i la navegació a través de l'entorn virtual. En augmentar el realisme dels avatars i facilitar la navegació, s'aconsegueixen altes puntuacions en presència durant les simulacions. Això proporciona un marc ideal per desenvolupar aplicacions col·laboratives de realitat virtual o simulacions d'emergència que requereixen que els participants se sentin com si estiguessin en la vida realPostprint (published version

Crowd dynamics

Crowd dynamics are complex. This thesis examines the nature of the crowd and its dynamics with specific reference to the issues of crowd safety. A model (Legion) was developed that simulates the crowd as an emergent phenomenon using simulated annealing and mobile cellular automata. We outline the elements of that model based on the interaction of four parameters: Objective, Motility, Constraint and Assimilation. The model treats every entity as an individual and it can simulate how people read and react to their environment in a variety of conditions. Which allows the user to study a wide range of crowd dynamics in different geometries and highlights the interactions of the crowd with their environment. We demonstrate that the model runs in polynomial time and can be used to assess the limits of crowd safety during normal and emergency egress. Over the last 10 years there have been many incidents of crowd related disasters. We highlight deficiencies in the existing guidelines relating to crowds. We compare and contrast the model with the safety guidelines and highlight specific areas where the guides may be improved. We demonstrate that the model is capable of reproducing these dynamics without additional parameters, satisfying Occam's Razor. The model is tested against known crowd dynamics from field studies, including Wembley Stadium, Balham Station and the Hong Kong Jockey club. We propose an alternative approach to assessing the dynamics of the crowd through the use of the simulation and analysis of least effort behaviour. Finally we test the model in a variety of applications where crowd related incidents warrant structural alterations at client sites. We demonstrate that the model explains the variance in a variety of field measurements, that it is robust and that it can be applied to future designs where safety and crowd comfort are criteria for design and cost savings