A Review Study of Crowd Behavior and Movement

Abstract

The efficient and safe operation of heavily crowded facilities used in special circumstances by unfamiliar users (e.g. Hajj) is a major concern to those responsible for the design and control of such public places and events. This paper presents a review of studies directed at the characterization of crowd behavior and movement. It appears that the theory of pedestrian traffic flow, for orderly movement under normal conditions, has been sufficiently developed to reflect the actual behavior of foot traffic flows in such context, and thus can be adopted for design and control purposes. On the other hand, the review reveals that virtually no scientific basis appears to be available in the literature to design and analyze strategies for the management of very large crowds associated with special events. The review of relevant Hajj studies shows that very limited research has been directed at crowd behavior and movement during the Hajj. Modelling capabilities are needed there to help better understand this unique phenomena, and thus prevent the occurrence of more crowding tragedies. The challenge for any future research, then, is to develop useful and accurate means for predicting normal crowd behavior, and for enabling facility managers and designers to evaluate various scenarios before costly mistakes are made.