How Smartphones Could Help Prevent Crushes At Events

No words can describe the sadness surrounding the recent crush in South Korea, but such events may be avoidable in the future with the use of smartphones. What challenges do mass events present, how could smartphones hold the key to safety, and what challenges would such a solution face?

What challenges do mass events introduce?

Festivals, celebrations, and parties are all a part of the human condition, whereby large groups of people come together in unison. One amazing fact about such events is that they are usually passed down from previous generations meaning that such events can be a connection to those who lived hundreds of years ago. But the increasing world population combined with restrictive areas and barriers can lead to fatal crush injuries, which are virtually impossible to stop. 

In October 2022, a large gathering of people in South Korea (estimated to be over 100,000), which was meant to celebrate Halloween, resulted in a crush that saw over 150 killed, including students, teachers, and children. Without going into too much detail, a narrow street that can barely handle 6 people at a time quickly became packed, and those at the back pushing forward saw those in the street fall over and trampled.

Undoubtedly, mass crush events occur when too many people are packed in any given area (typically, this is around 6 people per square meter), but trying to prevent this can be virtually impossible. The reason for this difficulty comes from several factors, with the first being that those in a crush zone are often unable to move their arms (and, as such, cannot easily call for aid), and the second factor is that those at the back of a crowd cannot see the condition at the front. In fact, those at the back of a crush will likely have plenty of space and simply think that the crowd is moving forward. 

Once authorities have detected that a crush incident is occurring, measures must be put in place to ease the crushing effect, which itself can be difficult. If authorities warn those from entering a zone, it can cause panic, increasing the chances of falling over. Simply put, the inability to coordinate large numbers of people leads to such awful incidences. 

Could smartphones be the solution?

After a few days of the story breaking out, I noticed that many of those in the crowd had smartphones which raised a rather interesting question, could smartphones help prevent crushes at future events? Thus, I present a potential solution that may encourage other engineers to design protective measures to better organise a crowd and prevent future deaths. 

The most crucial goal of preventing crush deaths is to increase the space between people, and this is something that has already been solved; COVID social distancing. While the 2 meters separation is overly dramatic, those at an event could utilise Bluetooth technology that detects other nearby Bluetooth devices to determine how far away others are. If everyone at an event had access to such a device, it would allow everyone to measure the area's density in real-time.

However, this data isn't used to warn those in the crowd as they will unlikely have easy access to their phone, nor would they be able to hear it. Instead, the average distance measurements are streamed to a remote server that identifies potential risk areas. If a potential crush is detected, it can send messages out to those at the back of the crowd that inform them to leave the area (not abiding by this instruction could even be a criminal punishment akin to manslaughter), and this will reduce the pressure exerted on the crowd. 

Finally, those who fall over in a crowd could have their phone immediately signal those nearby as well as authorities. While this may not help the individual immediately, it would give authorities a clear idea of where a crush may happen as well as a potentially injured individual.

What challenges does such a solution face?

There are two main areas of concern for such a solution: practicality and privacy. Expecting everyone in a crowd to use a mobile app that detects crushes is perfectly possible if that event is in a private space which requires entry tickets, but a public event would be far harder to enforce. Of course, authorities could encourage attendees to download the system, but just as COVID apps saw large amounts of backlash, it is unlikely that large proportions of society would willingly use such a solution.

The second challenge is that such a solution could have serious ramifications for privacy. Simply having the ability to track a device's location is a gross violation of privacy, meaning that some protective measures must be put in place. One method would be for users to remove the solution from their devices after attending a large gathering so that it cannot be continued to be used. Another solution is to utilise a decentralised network whereby devices only emit when they detect a danger instead of constantly transmitting their location.

Overall, using the same technology that powers COVID social distancing apps could very well be the solution to crush deaths, and while I personally lack the software capability to design such a system, maybe you could.