New Crowd Management Software
When a crowd crush killed 21 and injured hundreds at a German Love Parade last year, the finger of blame was pointed at organisers for not noticing a dangerous build-up of revellers.
Now, in a bid to stop a tragedy like the one that struck Duisburg in July 2010 from occurring again, a new piece of software has been developed to detect when crowds are starting to build up to dangerous levels.
By pre-empting the problem it will then give security staff the chance to disperse crowds to safety.
Barbara Krausz, from the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems in Sankt Augustin, Germany, developed the system.
She realised that, when people become trapped in a highly congested area, they sway slowly from side to side in an effort to keep their balance.
The software she has created notices the motion by scrutinising the movement of each pixel between different frames of crowd video footage
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2022203/Festival-crush-disasters-prevented-software-detects-dangerous-crowd-build-up.html#ixzz1UYTeKpyX
This a great tool, but it is only a tool. There still needs to be a trained person to examine the computer and identify when swaying patrons are engaged in dancing or a posible crowd surge.