TO TOP

CroMa. Crowd-Management in Transportation Infrastructures

Research project

To the project homepage

Subproject at the RUB: "Social Psychological Aspects of Crowd Management"

Project leader: Prof. Dr. Anna Sieben

Team: Mira Beermann; Krisztina Konya

Project duration: 1.8.2018 - 31.7.2022

Research Funding: BMBF, Program "Research for Civil Security"


Every day, around 36 million passengers in Germany use public transport. Passenger numbers are rising continuously. Operators are responding to this development by expanding services through the establishment of new lines, increasing the frequency of service and introducing new vehicles with higher seating capacities. This inevitably increases the number of passengers in the station. Waiting passengers as well as passengers embarking, disembarking and transferring will lead to overcrowded platforms and congestion at stairs or overpasses. Even today, disruptions caused by natural events, major events or construction sites trigger massive congestion at train or subway stations. Access to transportation becomes a limited resource and this circumstance can lead to dangerous crowding. The aim of the CroMa project is to achieve greater robustness of railroad stations during peak loads through improved structural regulations, appropriate crowd management and adapted cross-organizational instructions for action.
To achieve these goals, recommendations for structural measures of pedestrian facilities, such as platforms, stairs, and underpasses and overpasses, will be developed. Crowd management measures applicable in railroad stations will be developed in case of congestion of an existing transport infrastructure. It will be investigated to what extent social norms and a self-organization of passenger flows can be used to optimize the system. In addition, cross-organizational action instructions for operators of networked transport infrastructures will be developed.

The aim of the sub-project, which is located at the RUB, is the (socio-)psychological recording of subjective experiences and stresses as well as norms and strategies in crowds in train stations as well as the supplementation of structural recommendations and development of crowd management measures based on this.


Partners in the CroMa project: Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Düsseldorf Congress GmbH

Associated partners: Schweizerische Bundesbahnen AG, Deutsche Bahn AG, Kölner Verkehrs-Betriebe AG, Rheinbahn AG, Verband Deutscher Verkehrsunternehmen e.V., Bundespolizeiinspektion Düsseldorf, Landeshauptstadt Düsseldorf, eps gmbh, Special Security Services Deutschland GmbH