50
3 Social Forces
pilgrimage, where thousands of pilgrims had died in the past due to a number of
tragic crowd disasters. How could one avoid them?
This was a challenge that was not simply related to technical matters such as crowd
densities. We also needed to take dozens of religious, political, historical, cultural,
financial and ethical factors into account. Our previous experience of modeling
crowds led us to propose a range of measures including the counting of crowds
through a newly developed video analysis tool, the implementation of time schedules
for groups of pilgrims, re-routing strategies for crowded situations, contingency plans
for possible incidents, an awareness program informing pilgrims in advance about the
procedures during the Hajj, and an improved information system to guide millions
of pilgrims who spoke 200 different languages.
45 As many of the proposals had been
implemented, the Hajj (in 1427H) was indeed performed safely without any incident
in 2007,
46 after which I turned to other projects. The main success principles were
to avoid crossing and counter-flows, and to suitably adapt to real-time information
gathered.
Since then, the principle of providing real-time feedback to crowds has become a
trend. An interesting example is an app to improve the safety of mass events, which
was developed by Paul Lukowicz, a member of the FuturICT project, and a number
of other scientists such as Ulf Blanke.
47 By using this app, festivalgoers at a number
of festivals in London, Vienna and Zurich voluntarily provided GPS data about their
locations, which was used to determine their speeds and directions. This data was
then returned to the festivalgoers to give them a picture of the areas which they should
better avoid due to over-crowding.
3.13 Forces Describing Opinion Formation and Other
Behaviors
Is the usefulness of the concept of social forces restricted to pedestrian flows (and
traffic flows
48 ), or can it be applied to various other kinds of social phenomena such
as crime and conflict as well? The success of force models in describing pedestrian
flows is related to the fact that pedestrians are moving continuously in space. Therefore, the dynamics of a pedestrian can be represented by an equation of motion,
which states that the change of his/her spatial position over time is given by their
velocity. An additional equation expresses that the change in velocity over time (i.e.
45 Haase et al. [32]; also see Ref. 82.
46 In the meantime, three further levels of the new Jamarat Bridge were completed, and the organization of the pilgrim flows was changed several times. However, since 2007 I haven’t been involved
in this anymore. To the best of my knowledge, the Hajj was safe as long as the recommendations of
the international expert panel were approximately implemented. It also seems that the international
expert panel, which is now in charge, has not been responsible for the sad crowd disaster in 2015.
47 See https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6827652 and Helbing et al. [33].
48 Helbing and Tilch [34].
3 Social Forces
pilgrimage, where thousands of pilgrims had died in the past due to a number of
tragic crowd disasters. How could one avoid them?
This was a challenge that was not simply related to technical matters such as crowd
densities. We also needed to take dozens of religious, political, historical, cultural,
financial and ethical factors into account. Our previous experience of modeling
crowds led us to propose a range of measures including the counting of crowds
through a newly developed video analysis tool, the implementation of time schedules
for groups of pilgrims, re-routing strategies for crowded situations, contingency plans
for possible incidents, an awareness program informing pilgrims in advance about the
procedures during the Hajj, and an improved information system to guide millions
of pilgrims who spoke 200 different languages.
45 As many of the proposals had been
implemented, the Hajj (in 1427H) was indeed performed safely without any incident
in 2007,
46 after which I turned to other projects. The main success principles were
to avoid crossing and counter-flows, and to suitably adapt to real-time information
gathered.
Since then, the principle of providing real-time feedback to crowds has become a
trend. An interesting example is an app to improve the safety of mass events, which
was developed by Paul Lukowicz, a member of the FuturICT project, and a number
of other scientists such as Ulf Blanke.
47 By using this app, festivalgoers at a number
of festivals in London, Vienna and Zurich voluntarily provided GPS data about their
locations, which was used to determine their speeds and directions. This data was
then returned to the festivalgoers to give them a picture of the areas which they should
better avoid due to over-crowding.
3.13 Forces Describing Opinion Formation and Other
Behaviors
Is the usefulness of the concept of social forces restricted to pedestrian flows (and
traffic flows
48 ), or can it be applied to various other kinds of social phenomena such
as crime and conflict as well? The success of force models in describing pedestrian
flows is related to the fact that pedestrians are moving continuously in space. Therefore, the dynamics of a pedestrian can be represented by an equation of motion,
which states that the change of his/her spatial position over time is given by their
velocity. An additional equation expresses that the change in velocity over time (i.e.
45 Haase et al. [32]; also see Ref. 82.
46 In the meantime, three further levels of the new Jamarat Bridge were completed, and the organization of the pilgrim flows was changed several times. However, since 2007 I haven’t been involved
in this anymore. To the best of my knowledge, the Hajj was safe as long as the recommendations of
the international expert panel were approximately implemented. It also seems that the international
expert panel, which is now in charge, has not been responsible for the sad crowd disaster in 2015.
47 See https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6827652 and Helbing et al. [33].
48 Helbing and Tilch [34].