Investigating collective escape behaviours in complex situations

Abstract

Many different forms of complex pedestrian crowd behaviours, such as turning, crossing and merging, that could be critical under emergency and high density conditions can be identified in major public infrastructures. Scarcity of human data on panic has made it extremely difficult and challenging to model crowd dynamics in these complex situations, particularly under emergencies. Although previous crowd disasters in the past have highlighted that these different movements are crucial in panic, there are no comprehensive studies aimed at understanding and capturing these phenomena under panic conditions. In this study we utilise data collected through experiments with panicking ants in order ..