SAFER CROWDS

Across the world, people spend increasing amounts of time in crowded settings. There is massive global growth in large scale live experiences of all kinds, driven by rising incomes, a shift towards the consumption of experience as well as product, and a thirst for real human contact to counter our increasingly virtualised lives. Changing patterns of work and leisure, together with high levels of internet and mobile usage technology, mean that both planned and spontaneous crowds form in a wider range of places and for a wider range of purposes than ever before. From music festivals to sporting events, from shopping trips to religious gatherings and from political protests to city tourism.

But crowds can be dangerous places. Around the world, thousands continue to be injured or killed in crowd-related disasters. Whether triggered by factions within the crowd, by natural disasters or misguided crowd managers, there is a long history of crushes, stampedes and failed evacuations. As public expectations change, there is decreasing tolerance of these largely avoidable tragedies. Those responsible for managing crowds, whether local authorities, police forces, venue operators or event managers, are under pressure from the public, the regulators and insurers to identify and manage crowd risk responsibly and effectively. And for crowd organisers in emerging markets, it can be vital to match or surpass high international standards of safety in order to attract global tourism and investment.

This long history of crowd crises has created a backdrop of fear. Events may be banned, cancelled or disrupted as organisers or authorities react preemptively in the absence of reliable information or confidence in their ability to manage crowding risk. And when events do proceed there remains a fear of the unknown, however well planned the event or well trained the staff. Good policing and stewarding can deal with many situations as they arise, but it is impossible to plan for all eventualities. The crowd may be bigger or more volatile than planned, the weather more disruptive, the public transport systems less effective or the event may fail to run to time. Whatever the cause, the solution requires real, live, situational awareness and relevant information, to enhance human performance, improve on-the-ground decision-making and intervention choices, and reduce fear and uncertainty.

Crowd Vision provides instant, accurate, real time data on crowd numbers, densities, distributions and flows using standard commercial video cameras and world-leading live video analytics. It spots patterns of crowd behavior that indicate potential danger – high densities, pressure, turbulence, stop-and-go waves and other anomalies. It enables operational decision-makers to respond more rapidly and effectively based on real-time situational awareness. Crowd Vision offers transformational capability for everyone involved in crowd safety – from Law Enforcement officers to Transport Operators and Event Managers. Contact us to find out more.