Study on the Efficacy of Crowd Control and Information Provision Through a Simple Cellular Automata Model

This study presents a simple Cellular Automata model which allows to estimate the combined effect of crowd control and information provision on pedestrian dynamics. We assume the case of a closed loop consisting of two lanes connected in only two points where pedestrians are allowed to move from the inner to the outer loop and in the opposite direction. Both lanes are virtually divided by a wall which does not allow to visually inspect the other side except on the locations connecting them. To investigate the effect of information provision we assume that a given number of pedestrians have information on the speed in both lanes. In addition, we assume that lane changing locations are guarded by security staff which can give orders to the crowd on which lane to choose. However, only a given number of pedestrians are compliant and will obey to the orders. Initial settings for the simulation have been set so that free flow in both lanes is obtained only when the number of lane changes is limited and density is equal in both inner and outer loops. Results show that crowd control strategy, compliance ratio and information provision have a clear impact on the overall group speed. The combined analysis of all variables showed that efficient information provision is the most reliable method to ensure an adequate speed (and flow) even when crowd control fails or when compliance is low.