IIT-M develops system to avoid stampedes at huge gatherings

Using a computer simulation, researchers can intelligently plan where to place police personnel to quickly quell disturbances in a crowd that could otherwise lead to panic and chaos.

The research, published in the journal Physical Review Letters, can also help design safe evacuation procedures for events and locations that witness high footfall. 

“Couple of years ago the Elphinstone brigde tragedy took place in Mumbai. It was a very unfortunate event that we thought could have been prevented by understanding the physics of stampede,” said Mahesh Panchagnula, a professor at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras. If we know how these events start and how they propogate through a crowd, there are ways of mitigating it.”

“These kinds of stampedes have clear patterns in how they start. We wanted to understand those early signs and figure out how you place the police people, who then direct the crowd in a way that would prevent stampede,” Panchagnula said. 

The ongoing Kumbh Mela, a Hindu pilgrimage at Allahabad, is one of the world’s largest religious gatherings. Similarly, Mecca in Saudi Arabia, Islam’s holiest city, is visited by millions of pilgrims every year. Such events call for better methods of crowd control, researchers said.

“For example they have investigated the idea of placing barriers at certain places that would make the flow of crowd easier. It may sound counter intuitive, but it works,” he said. The research team, which includes Sumesh P Thampi and Ajinkya Kulkarni, analysed what happens when a dense crowd — about 3-4 people per square metres — fills into a confined space. 

The researchers tried to capture the simple rules that a person follows to navigate in a crowd in to a mathematical model. The predictions of the model adhered well to experimental observations, they said.

The researchers are keen to partner with government agencies to develop intelligent crowd management strategies for future religious, political or sporting events. The cost of implementing the predictive model in a real life scenario is very minimal, say scientists, as it simply informs authorities on how to best use their existing resources.