Crowds in front of bottlenecks at entrances from the perspective of physics and social psychology

TL;DR

This interdisciplinary study investigates how physical and social psychological factors influence crowd behavior at bottleneck entrances, revealing effects of motivation, corridor width, and social norms on density and fairness.

Contribution

It provides new insights into crowd dynamics at entrances by combining physics and social psychology through experimental analysis of motivation, space, and social norms.

Findings

Density increases with motivation and corridor width.

Narrow corridors are perceived as fairer and more comfortable.

Pushing behavior is both unfair and perceived as a strategy for faster access.

Abstract

This article presents an interdisciplinary study of physical and social psychological effects on crowd dynamics based on a series of bottleneck experiments. Bottlenecks are of particular interest for applications such as crowd management and design of emergency routes because they limit the performance of a facility. In addition to previous work on the dynamics within the bottleneck, this study focuses on the dynamics in front of the bottleneck, more specifically, at entrances. The experimental setup simulates an entrance scenario to a concert consisting of an entrance gate (serving as bottleneck) and a corridor formed by barriers. The parameters examined are the corridor width, degree of motivation and priming of the social norm of queuing. The analysis is based on head trajectories and questionnaires. We show that the density of persons per square metre depends on motivation and also increases continuously with increasing corridor width meaning that a density reduction can be achieved by a reduction of space. In comparison to other corridor widths observed, the narrowest corridor is rated as being fairer, more comfortable and as showing less unfair behaviour. Pushing behaviour is seen as ambivalent: it is rated as unfair and listed as a strategy for faster access.