Crowd bottlenecks are organized by the individual motivation of each person rather than just their physical speed.
Pedestrians in a crowded space self-organize into specific positions based on how important their goal is to them. Engineers usually model crowd safety by treating people like uniform particles that move faster or slower based on density. Data patterns show that the push and pull of a crowd is a complex social hierarchy driven by psychological urgency. People with higher motivation will navigate toward different spatial zones to reach their destination faster. This discovery means that designing safer stadiums and subway stations requires accounting for how people think and not just how they move.
A well-motivated model of pedestrian dynamics
arXiv · 2604.26858
In pedestrian dynamics, the internal drive that propels individuals toward their goals is typically captured by a single, fixed parameter, the desired walking speed. This simplification overlooks that motivation fluctuates in response to changing spatial and social conditions within a crowd. This paper proposes a dynamic motivation model grounded in expectancy-value theory from psychology, in which each agent's motivation evolves over time depending on proximity to the goal, relative position am