Victoria Atkinson is a long-time independent science journalist. Ever since, she’s been a force, surfacing with astute understanding, as well as lyrical depiction of, all things chemistry—its relationships to the natural world and human-created impasses. Atkinson is formerly a science content developer at the University of Oxford. His range and depth of expertise has been a great reassurance to the Chemistry World editorial team. She holds a DPhil in organic chemistry from Oxford and is now back in York, UK. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, Karol Bacik, a mathematician at MIT, has been at the forefront of research that could revolutionize our understanding of pedestrian flow and crowd dynamics.
Bacik and his collaborators have formulated a novel mathematical theory that can predict how pedestrians will behave in a crowded space with striking accuracy. What researchers have found is that your “angular spread” is the most important thing. It determines if humans will queue up in perfect lanes or corkscrew out into violent gridlock. If improved then this research can significantly contribute toward a better design and management of crowded environments around the world.
Understanding Angular Spread
Angular spread is the angular range of directions that people move at in a crowd. Bacik’s calculation shows that when this angular divergence amounts to about 13 degrees it serves as a tipping point. At angles near this critical threshold, orderly lanes can rapidly become chaotic congestion. The implications of this are far reaching for understanding how crowds move in indoor versus outdoor environments.
“If you think about the whole crowd flowing, rather than individuals, you can use fluid-like descriptions,” – Karol Bacik
This fluid-like approach allows Bacik’s team to make predictions about crowd behavior without requiring detailed knowledge of each individual in the crowd. Bacik’s research concerns the international nature of pedestrian flow and the existence or lack thereof of lanes. This approach has provided unexpected new insights into crowd dynamics themselves.
Implications for Crowd Management
The study conducted by Bacik and his collaborators may have broad consequences for how we handle packed spaces. Where painted or otherwise marked pedestrian spaces are not kept clear, people naturally walk at a slower pace to dodge being run over. This added reduction in random crowds (compared to organized lanes) can be up to 30%. By realizing the full potential of angular spread, pedestrian throughput can be greatly improved. This is critical when such events occur in congested locations such as airports, train stations, and central business districts.
“If you only care about the global characteristics like, are there lanes or not, then you can make predictions without detailed knowledge of everyone in the crowd.” – Karol Bacik
This perspective could lead to more efficient crowd management strategies that focus on creating conditions conducive to orderly movement, thereby enhancing safety and reducing congestion in public spaces.
Future Prospects
Though research by Bacik’s team is ongoing, their findings already present exciting possibilities for creating more comfortable and less overwhelming spaces. By applying their mathematical theory to real-world scenarios, they hope to assist city planners, event organizers, and safety officials in designing spaces that promote efficient pedestrian flow. In the long term, these learnings might help design new technologies and infrastructure that proactively adjust to evolving crowd patterns in real time.
