Urban crowd steering: An overview

Abstract

Smart phones and environmental sensors make it possible to dynamically monitor the positions and patterns of movements of people in urban areas and public spaces, identify or predict possible dangerous situations (e.g., overcrowded areas) or simply recognize the profitability of a different patterns of distribution and collective movements. In this overview paper, we focus on the problem of using such technologies also to steer the movement of people. In particular, this paper has the goal of motivating the general problem of crowd steering, identifying the technologies that can be put to play to enforce crowd steering strategies, and presenting the possible strategies that can be adopted to steer people movements, other than the key research challenges.