It’s common knowledge that the global population is ever-increasing. Pair this factor with mass migration to cities and built-up areas and megacities are the result. A megacity is defined as “a very large city, one with a population of over ten million people,” and the number of megacities worldwide is increasing. Today there are 33 official megacities, an increase on 2014’s 31, and nothing on 2030’s predicted 41. The world’s most densely populated cities included; Delhi, India; Beijing; New York; and Tokyo-Yokohama, Japan. Their high population poses problems for city planners to overcome with the help of new crowd control technologies.
Even those cities that do not quite reach the megacity status are growing exponentially. In 2016, there were 512 cities around the world with at least 1 million citizens, and one in five people choose to inhabit these concrete landscapes. At the World Economic Forum in 2017, the problems that these cities can cause were discussed. It is estimated that more than half of the world’s population live in cities, and this number is only going to increase. Because of these growing numbers, many measures must be considered to ensure safe living conditions for all. Poverty, vulnerability, natural disasters and overcrowded must all be considered and carefully managed to avoid chaos.
To avoid congestion, and the dangers that come with it, traffic flow must be carefully managed in these metropolises. Also, crowd control needs to be understood and managed. Computerized crowd simulation is a great solution to the overcrowding issue. This technology allows experts to monitor how people are likely to move around in, enter and leave any given building—providing the intel needed to alleviate congestion.
Crowd simulation programs can help tackle the complex challenges that crowded supercities pose. One of these programs was involved with the redevelopment of the New York Fulton Center interchange. After opening its doors to commuters in 2014, the New York Fulton Center links six subways and ten subway lines in lower Manhattan.
Crowd simulation software was used to optimize how the Fulton Center was used by pedestrians. It revealed the way people used the center, how long it took them to make transfers and how they moved between the subway lines. The problem was with how efficiently (or inefficiently) people were moving around the center rather with the number of trains or commuters passing through. The crowd simulation software was intrinsic to the success of the development project.
There are certain developments that benefit urban planning requirements, including the following.
- Streamlined model building, thanks to the ability to import entire BIM objects into the software.
- Independent virtual pedestrians in the software that will react to situations as they develop.
- Virtual pedestrians with pre-programmable agendas.
Thanks to these innovative technologies, large cities and official megacities could see vast improvements in safety and risk reduction. Not only can crowd simulation help reduce the congestion these cities are already experiencing, but it can also inform future city planning. With the trend toward larger, more densely populated cities here to stay, city planners must always consider how technology can help make lives easier and more economical in years to come.
