Crowd management and urban design: New scientific approaches

As our cities become denser and host larger gathering events, the need for scientific and computational approaches to crowd management increases. Today, our cities must cater to activities and places that involve massive crowds such as the Olympics, large transportation terminals and mega entertainment and shopping centers. The planning challenges for mega events and activities led urban planners to embark on new studies that offer entirely new design approaches for crowd management. This article uses the Hajj project as a case study to illustrate these new approaches. By employing a non-technical discourse, this article explains software applications for crowd management in three areas: (i) diagnosing problems, (ii) testing designs and (iii) setting operational plans. Collectively, these software tools assisted in creating a new design that facilitated a safe Hajj environment in recent years. The article also discusses the significance of employing on-the-ground assistance to ensure successful planning and design.