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This paper discusses the impact of crowd composition on egress performance. Same stadium, different events, different crowds. How does the crowd egress change?

Dr Aoife Hunt and Professor Steve Gwynne, alongside colleagues at Lund University have recently published a paper on "The impact of crowd composition on egress performance".

Highlights from the paper include:

Extract from paper: Fig. 2. Examples of crowd composition in the four events under consideration.

  • Crowd movement was analysed to investigate egress flows at a large stadium in the UK following four different event types.
  • Video footage captured the egressing crowds and the relationships between velocities, flows and densities.
  • The results indicate that the crowd composition, along with external factors (e.g., weather), have a measurable impact on the velocities, flows and densities observed.
  • Importantly, the observed flowrates were much lower than the maximum value (82 people/m*min) recommended in the 2018 Guide to Safety at Sports Grounds (the sixth edition of the “Green Guide”).

READ THE FULL PAPER ON SCIENCE DIRECT

"The impact of crowd composition on egress performance"

Reference:

Larsson,A, Ranudd,E, Ronchi,W, Hunt,A, Gwynne,S,  Fire Safety Journal, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.firesaf.2020.103040