Ordering leads to multiple fast tracks in simulated collective escape of human crowds

TL;DR

This study uses a physics-inspired model to simulate crowd escape, revealing that ordered structures and topological defects lead to multiple fast escape routes in human crowds.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analogy between crowd dynamics and crystallisation, demonstrating how order and defects influence escape efficiency.

Findings

Crystalline order emerges during crowd escape.

Multiple fast tracks form due to topological defects.

Order influences the efficiency of crowd evacuation.

Abstract

Elucidating emergent regularities in intriguing crowd dynamics is a fundamental scientific problem arising in multiple fields. In this work, based on the social force model, we simulate the typical scenario of collective escape towards a single exit and reveal the striking analogy of crowd dynamics and crystallisation. With the outflow of the pedestrians, crystalline order emerges in the compact crowd. In this process, the local misalignment and global rearrangement of pedestrians are well rationalized in terms of the characteristic motions of topological defects in the crystal. Exploiting the notions from the physics of crystallisation further reveals the emergence of multiple fast tracks in the collective escape.