CroMa Project: Crowd Management in Transport Infrastructures

On 4 September 2018, the new CroMa project (Crowd Management in Transport Infrastructures) was officially launched at a kick-off meeting in Wuppertal. The CroMa project is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) over three years as of August 2018 as part of the Research Programme for Civil Security.

Public transport strongly relies on railway systems. Due to constantly growing passenger volumes, new concepts are needed in order to increase the efficiency of railway and underground stations. The CroMa project is focused on the development and enhancement of different strategies, such as building regulations, crowd management, and innovative action strategies. These strategies aim to increase the robustness and efficiency of railway stations during peak load and to avoid crushes in the event of critical crowd densities.

Research within the framework of CroMa includes the investigation of pedestrian traffic in traffic facilities and the study of pedestrian behaviour within dense crowds. These research fields will be assessed by means of field studies at railway stations as well as large-scale experiments in which several outer and inner parameters will be varied on a controlled basis.

The partners in the joint research project are the University of Wuppertal, Forschungszentrum Jülich (IAS 7 – Civil Safety Research), Ruhr-Universität Bochum, and Düsseldorf Congress GmbH. The associated partners include representatives of several public transport services, federal police, firefighters, equipment suppliers, and security services.

Contact: Dr. Maik Boltes, m.boltes@fz-juelich.de

from JSC News No. 261, 24 October 2018