Confession - The secret to ants through the crowd

Please go ahead, no, please! Ants can teach us the best way to calm a panicking crowd.

A bustling crowd can be dissolved faster by placing certain obstacles on the way, Australian researchers announced after learning the lesson from the crowd control of ants.

Monash Assistant Professor Martin Burd is using Argentine ants ( Linepithema humile ) to model the behavior of panic groups. He said preliminary research on this species supported the "slower and faster" paradox of crowd behavior.

Linepithema humile - Linepithema humile
(Photo: Forestandbird)

"If the average movement speed of each individual decreases, the whole crowd will move faster, and the ants are actually doing it," he said. "When panic, ants don't react like humans. They continue to be calm and polite to each other. They don't try to save their own lives, but behave to create the best for the whole group." .

Although it is difficult for people to study the sacrifice of Argentine ants, Burd thinks that panic crowds can be controlled to move more orderly through intelligent building designs.

"Simply put a column in front of the entrance, you will increase the movement speed , " Burd said. "Meeting an obstacle will prevent people from interfering when going through the door."

Another suggestion is to place a divider on the corridor to create lanes, slowing down the speed of travel and making traffic flow more orderly.

Burd says the practical benefits of research are in common disasters such as fires. He also plans to work with traffic engineering experts to develop better control systems for the crowd's flow.

T. An