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Hajj Pilgrimage Safety Challenges Crowd Simulator Technology
agent elevator writes: In 2010, Saudi Arabia hosted an international design competition aimed at safely accommodating more pilgrims at Mecca's Grand Mosque. One of the participants told IEEE Spectrum that the crowd densities there (6 people per square meter) bogged down off-the-shelf software so badly that simulation run times were about 10 to 20 times slower than real time crowd movement. Nevertheless, he found some workarounds that gave designers a plan to double the Grand Mosque's peak visitor rate from 40,000 to 102,000 people per hour. Last week's stampede took place well away from the mosque, but signals sent to pilgrims telling them when to speed up or slow down could help prevent such a tragedy, the crowd simulation expert said.
Other engineers are turning to fuzzy logic as way to predict how crowds will react in a panic.
Can we simulate safely co-existing with a violent, barbaric religion that glamorizes death?
The premise behind these simulations is that giving directions to crowds will improve flow of people.
It's a mighty big assumption that the folks in the crowds would follow a signal to "slow down". Between the culture in general (ever see a tidy British style queue in the middle east?), and the general human dynamics of large crowds of people, I don't have much hope of this being a success.
Perhaps a better solution would be to increase the time window for this event- spread the crowd over a few months instead of a few days.
FTW!
Didn't Allah will those people to get trampled? Why would they contradict Allah's will?
Automation is not always the answer - some people from all nations ignore traffic signals if they cannot see an immediate reason for them (eg. people driving through a red light at midnight when there is no traffic) but are less likely to ignore a direction from someone in a uniform. If the person in uniform then gets their directions from those with a full overview they perform the function of the signals but are more likely yo be obeyed.
Notice how many events have security guys to discourage people from climbing onto a stage instead of just signs?
in nearly two decades! Talk about dusting off an old scam. Next we're going to hear about an "expert system."
Have them all stand still on a moving track.
Here in the US, we have the good sense to trample other countries to death in order to pay homage to our magical sky-god.
http://www.independent.co.uk/n...
You are welcome on my lawn.
If they have no problem trampling on people, why would they have a problem with ignoring a computer telling them to speed up or slow down?
They trampled people trying to pay homage to a prophet who said things like, "don't treat women like cattle" and "look after the poor; even non Muslim poor"
Here we trample people so we can buy 29 dollar movie players.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
He also banged 9 year olds. 9 year olds dude.
Monstar L
Everyone was calm and patient, as I imagine they are 99.999% of the time at the Hajj. But from the BBC article:
(This is nowhere near the Kaaba, where pilgrims circle around the stone, and where a lot of crowd-control research has been done.) At light densities, columns of people can cross easily and elegantly, such as at a pedestrian crossing. At high densities, it would become physically impossible to make (push) one’s way through a column moving at right angles, with this happening just as people lose their autonomy. With pressure coming in from behind it would become deadly.
I’m old enough to remember 16K of memory being described as “whopping”
Did I say Christianity was any better? I don't care what the age of consent "laws" say, any civilized culture will not allow 9 year olds to be banged, especially by those who are considered "holy". But then again, sky friends and child molestation seem to go hand in hand.
Monstar L
nice cherry picking. how about the rest of the koran???
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
As the world's human population will increase from the current 7 Billion to over 12 Billion within 50 years, large scale gathering, whether it be religious ceremonies, sporting events, musical festivals political carnivals, protests and/or riots will take place, and more people will be trampled to death in stampede
As long as the humans still behave like pack animals, and as long as the designated gathering venues such as Mecca fail to expand to accommodate the vastly increase number of participants, you can count on even worse disasters to happen
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
So what's the downside?
As long as the humans still behave like pack animals, and as long as the designated gathering venues such as Mecca fail to expand to accommodate the vastly increase number of participants, you can count on even worse disasters to happen
That's why you shouldn't fence them in. The problem starts when you block the path. Just put the whole damn thing out in the open where people can move.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
of that kid?
Well I don't know what the real answer is but I'm pretty sure it will involve drones equipped with silly string.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How about in English? For the few remaining here.
Well, this story is about people who understand mainly Bahasa Indonesian, Urdu, Arabic, Turkic languages, Farsi and so on. So it's okay for English to be a low priority here /troll
This has been going on for decades. One doesn't need computers, or queueing theories, or simulators to simply organize people so that stampedes don't happen. All that's needed is appropriate policing, something the Saudis don't seem interested in doing.
They trampled people trying to pay homage to a prophet who said things like, "don't treat women like cattle" and "look after the poor; even non Muslim poor"
Here we trample people so we can buy 29 dollar movie players.
Huh? He never said any of those things. In fact, in the Qur'an, 2:223 - it says 'Your women are a tilth for you (to cultivate) so go to your tilth as ye will, and send (good deeds) before you for your souls, and fear Allah, and know that ye will (one day) meet Him. Give glad tidings to believers, (O Muhammad)'
Depends on which source (if any) you believe.
Speaking of child brides, you may want to check out the age Mary, mother of Jesus, was supposed to be married at.
Also, you may want to check the history of the age of consent laws.
Ok, so Mohammed married Aisha when she was 6, and thighed her when she was 9
A way to stop giant bags of mostly water from gaining destructive momentum is to add structures which limit how much energy is allowed to accumulate before such energy is harmlessly limited by an obstruction. The way to fix this isn't removing barriers it is adding them... lots and lots and lots and lots of them. With many thousands of stampede deaths the only acceptable solution should be an inherently safe one rather than depending on everyone following instructions.
Thinking people will respond to whatever signals you are piping out in the exceptional but predictable instances when fear takes over a crowd is idiotic in and of itself. The only worse thing I can imagine would be to leverage such delusions as an excuse to enable you to "safely" cram in even more.
Fuzzy logic is just as 'real' as calculus, and what's your beef with the term "expert system", does it hurt you ego to realise Google's search engine knows more about the internet than you do?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
So not fucking children is considered "prudish"? Hey, whatever the sky friend says goes right?
Monstar L
It's awfully hard to control the reactions of a crowd in a panic situation. With such a density, I doubt anything really effective can be done ... least signals to "slow down or speed up" ... in such situations, low-level impulses of the brain take over ... see results of research concerning e.g. exiting a building ... most humans will tend to follow the stream, leading to overcrowding of exits (while others that would give easier egress are sparsely used).
So unless they seriously limit access (which, in turn, might cause problems at the point of entry), these sorts of "accidents" will always happen.
Use a wheelchair to wizz them around on a conveyance system. Then hand them a science book and tell them to GTFO. Don't forget, charge them money too. That's always a good way to thin the the crowd. Start charging a fee .. when the Saudis run out of oil it will happen. Then you could have some rock star throw concert on top of the rock. But anyway not to distract from my idea of having the crowd sit in open air train carriages or wheelchairs as they are automatically taken on their pilgrimage. Yes it means they might get fat but remember these are psychos who believe in religion -- fat is the least of their problems.
As we know real world has limits. Politicians and religious and business leaders often ignore this reality - how about limits to the pilgrimage too - There is limited place in front of certain holy objects and you need certain time to do what you want to do. This means you have only this many people that can visit the place assuming smooth flow.
Are Saudis anywhere near this limit yet?
Assuming we have maxed on safe numbers of people per unit of time we still assume smooth flow. Humans not being fluids, having their own ideas distorting the flow make accidents inevitable even with best design.
Doesn't work... Ironically even if u do believe in raising from the dead, more people die at these crusades because of the crowds than supposedly raise from the dead... Evangelism in Nigeria - Reinhard Bonnke https://youtu.be/MBtBHZtdU78
That's why you shouldn't fence them in. The problem starts when you block the path. Just put the whole damn thing out in the open where people can move
Even without fences or corrals, a throng of 1e9 people is dangerous. Those guys in back, 7km from the 'stage,' want, at least, to be able to see the venue, and they push, just a little. The guys only 3km from 'stage,' they're also pushing, just a little. What do you think happens when a line of people four or five kilometers long all pushes on the guy in front?
This is what makes lemmings go over cliff faces, and it's why people died at Mecca.
How about, you know, making the pilgrimage something that is year long event instead of piling in everyone on one day?
How about celebrating Easter in August? Or better yet, Christmas all year round, so we can reduce the people injured in "Black Friday" events.
it's a joke.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
...one of 7 levels/arrows for successfully embedding into geometry of space (7 axes of symmetry through tetra-cube which is the physics of the origins of @lph@b3ts)
I could almost follow some of that. Part of me wants to ask WTF you been smokin but another part of me wants more info. I just hope this doesnt have anything to do with scientology.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
They did in the simulator I used to play around with.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
If there are 1.0 to 1.5 billion Muslims, but the hajj logistics maxes out at about 2.5M a year, I was wondering what fraction of Muslims are able to practice this essential tenant of their religion. Forbes tried to compile statistics in this figure http://blogs-images.forbes.com... One out of six at best. Distance, finances, and quotas limit those who are able to attend.
Seriously, Mecha would be a great place...
I agree, a pilgrimage site devoted to giant robots is a really great idea. Where should we build it though?
Some people deserve death by fire. Let's start with the Republicans.
Don't mess with republicans, they have guns! 8-)