Stadium Safety

(updated  31st August 2007)

Keywords: simulating people, simulating crowds, simulating crowd dynamics

Stadium Safety

The design of complex space requires a combination of queueing models, network analysis and congestion planning/management. Myriad combines all of the above into a simple process. All of these elements are available in the public domain and have extensive validation supporting them. The Myriad methodology combines these elements into a common framework for spatial analysis.

Simple, cost effective model building/simulation and analysis of concourses for Ingress, Queueing, Circulation and Egress from CAD plan to analysis and report in 1 working day.

Frequently the most acute problems for Stadia and other leisure buildings is during egress after the sports or leisure event finishes. In these circumstances thousands of people, who arrived at the event over a period of an hour or more try to leave the building in a few minutes.

Myriad can provide egress analysis (as highlighted for offices) Myriad can also be used to assess the dynamics of concourses at half-time intervals - for football this is the time of peak usage.

Stadium Safety Analysis

We run a series of site safety courses and site inspections (typically working with the local Safety Advisory Groups). Our remit is to identify those issues that relate to crowd dynamics and crowd safety. Below - from a recent site survey (UK).

Queueing models

 

 

 

 

 

The photographs above show the typical half-time congestion for the facilities on a stadium concourse. The entry rate is determined by the door width, circulation path within the facility and the egress route. The above design has several critical faults.

  • Door width too narrow - only one person at a time can pass causing congestion as patrons try to leave as others try to enter.

  • Internal layout not efficient - imbalanced facility layout places higher demand in areas where movement is restricted.

 

 

 

 

Blank model of the facility interior (from scanned paper plan)

The diagram to the right is the Myriad spatial analysis indicating the interactions in the movement of people in this facility.

 

 

 

 

 

Utilisation map (red areas have highest utilisation)

Coupled to the Myriadspatial analysis the queueing models allow the user to determine the optimal layout for various arrival profiles.

By using the queueing module we can assess the rate at which a queue will build up inside the facility, entering and leaving the facility and hence the congestion of the system during normal use.

Concourse Interaction maps

The photographs to the right shows the flow patterns on the concourse area (taken from video footage). It can be seen that there is a bi-directional flow around the concourse area. In places of highest interaction this flow rapidly becomes grid-locked.

The photograph below shows the extent of the congestion in the concourse area during this grid-locking of spectators.

The contoured map below indicates the areas (red) that will experience high conflict and congestion. These area are generally the vomitories, the toilets, the bars and food concessions where queueing/crowd problems are highly interactive. Relative usage of space is an important concept in the overall design and layout. All too often individual components work, but collectively they fail. The diagram shows the overlaps of queuing zones and, more importantly, under-utilised spaces (blue areas) indicating wastage in the design. During the design phase of this area it would have been possible to save 15% of the floor area in building costs equally an increase of the retail or toilet capacity could be considered.

By analysis of the spatial utilisation we can determine (from the slope of the graph below) how far this design is from optimal utilisation (ie: an even 80% utilisation across the whole area). If areas are underutilised we can save space and building costs. Over utilised areas experience high congestion and potential crowd problems. These models are produced using shockwave analysis.

Many different types of places of public assembly can be analysed and optimised using the Myriad techniques such as the location and layout of concert areas, concessions, mixer desks, stage layouts etc.

Mixer desks and concessions - Wembley Stadium.

The photographs below show the stage and stands at a typical concert at Wembley Stadium. The models below show high density build up map (left) of the same area show in the photographs  (Wembley Stadium - concert configuration).

 

 

 

 

 

We can see the correlation between the actual crowd build up and the red (high density areas on the models).