Despite extensive pre-event planning of mass events and well developed security concepts, the dynamic nature of crowds during mass events can lead to unforeseen, hazardous situations resulting in tragic incidents. Often this is due to missing exact and reliable information about the actual number of people, the crowd flows and the spatial distribution of the local densities in the crowd. Currently, due to the persistent difficulty to measure pedestrian crowds reliably, in practice, human scouts report to the control center at regular intervals. This information depends on subjective assessments and often arrives too late to put appropriate measures into place. To ensure safety of visitors at large events reliable information is essential.
In the project EN MASSE a flexible set of instruments was developed that offers a system for crowd monitoring at mass events which includes the gathering and the analysis of multi-sensor measurements containing video, counting sensors, Bluetooth and cell phone data. The merged and analyzed multi-sensor data serve as input for the crowd simulation model to provide short term predictions with different time horizons and builds the fundamentals for a system providing an overview of the current situation and the investigation of future incidents in a control center station.
Critical regions can be identified in advance and will improve the decision processes by offering more accurate and objective information making an early reaction possible. A database storing all information enables the documentation of critical situations and the verification of the measures taken.
EN MASSE created the foundations for a modelling and simulation based decision support for increased safety at mass events. The results from the cooperative development and the demonstration were evaluated and further developments up to an operational and technically mature system were worked out and documented.
Project leader
DI Helmut Schrom-Feiertag, Österreichisches Forschungs- und Prüfzentrum Arsenal Ges.m.b.H. – AIT Mobility
Project partner
Joanneum Research Forschungsgesellschaft mbH
SPI Intelligence Services GmbH
c.c.com Andersen & Moser GmbH
Wagner Sicherheit GmbH
BM.I Bundesministerium für Inneres
Cooperation partner
Nova Music Entertainment GmbH
Dr. Günther Fleck, Institut für Human- und Sozialwissenschaften, Landesverteidigungsakademie
Dr. Wolfgang Klobassa, Rechtsanwalt
Contact
DI Helmut Schrom-Feiertag
Mobility Department
Dynamic Transportation Systems
AIT Austrian Institute of Technology
Österreichisches Forschungs- und Prüfzentrum Arsenal Ges.m.b.H.
Giefinggasse 2 | 1210 Vienna | Austria
M +43(0) 664 825 10 03 | F +43(0) 50550-6439
helmut.schrom-feiertag@ait.ac.at | http://www.ait.ac.at
