Crowd physiology: the ‘penguin effect’

Blows, William T.

doi:10.1016/s0965-2302(98)90025-x

Cited by 7 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…The distance between the visitors in the stadium was large enough to prevent the occurrence of the penguin effect (Blows, 1998), which is the effect that the crowd takes on a 'corporate body temperature'. In that case heat transfer to the environment is reduced and the temperature rises to very high values.…”

Section: Evaluation Of Predictionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hypothermia Prevention during the Royal Marriage Party in the Amsterdam Arena Stadium

Daanen

Brandsma

Cox³

et al. 2002

JHES

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IntroductionOn February 2nd 2002 the Royal Marriage between His Royal Highness Prince Willem Alexander and Maxima Zorreguita took place in Amsterdam. The evening before, a party was planned in the Amsterdam Arena for which 50 thousand guests were invited. The Amsterdam Arena is a large soccer stadium covered by a roof, the home stadium of Ajax Amsterdam (see Fig. 1). With the roof closed, there is still a total opening of approximately 160 m 2 in the roof.The guests were invited by the city and village boards in The Netherlands and were expected to consist of a representative part of the Dutch population.Since February 1st can be rather cold in The Netherlands (about 95% of the ambient temperatures are less than 10°C) and wet (rain in 57% of the days over the last 100 years) and since the temperature in the stadium is only slightly higher than the outdoor temperature, the organization feared that hypothermia might occur during the party. The guests were allowed to enter the stadium at 17.00 hours and the party would end at about 22.00 hours. This five-hour exposure, combined with the suspicion that the guests might be underdressed, made that the organization committee desired a risk analysis and an analysis of possible measures to prevent hypothermia. This analysis is described in this paper, as well as the evaluation of the actual circumstances during the party. Methods Climatic assessmentThe effect of ambient temperature and humidity on the temperature within the Arena (air volume 1 Mm 3 ) was calculated using AIDA (Liddament, 1989) and ESP-r (ESP-r, 1990). AIDA is a ventilation model for the calculation of air change rates in single zone enclosures. The calculation is based on the iterative balancing of the flow equation. The model takes into account pressure differences due to wind and temperature differences (stack pressure) and the location and size of the openings. The influence of adjacent buildings on the pressure distribution around the stadium, expressed by the wind pressure coefficient, was estimated using the Cp-generator (Knoll, 1995). The Cpgenerator is a computer model for prediction of wind pressure coefficients on facades and roofs, based on Journal of the Human-Environmental System Vol. 6; No. 1: 31-37, 2002 Hypothermia AbstractShortly before the Royal Marriage Party, on the occasion of the wedding of His Royal Highness Prince Willem Alexander and Maxima Zorreguita, took place in the Amsterdam Arena stadium, the organization realized that the audience might be exposed to cold for a considerable period and that hypothermia might occur. Therefore, the risk for hypothermia was assessed and the effect of counter-measures was calculated using thermal models. The models showed that it was not effective to place heaters in the stadium, but that reducing the ventilation rate was effective. Beer is known to enhance body cooling and was therefore prohibited during extreme cold. An entertainer tried to stimulate the audience to move in order to generate extra heat. Each visitor received a clothing r...

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Section: Evaluation Of Predictionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hypothermia Prevention during the Royal Marriage Party in the Amsterdam Arena Stadium

Daanen

Brandsma

Cox³

et al. 2002

JHES

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“…Wong et al [17] offered empirical evidence suggesting the concentration of anthropogenic activities from crowding as a major source of urban heat. Blows [18] and Wong et al [19] established the "Penguin effect" and "Herd effect," respectively, to illustrate physiological changes in humans and effects of heat retention on an individual within overcrowded situations. Blows [18] also claimed that heat would transfer from people to the environment and result in a warmer microclimate.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Blows [18] and Wong et al [19] established the "Penguin effect" and "Herd effect," respectively, to illustrate physiological changes in humans and effects of heat retention on an individual within overcrowded situations. Blows [18] also claimed that heat would transfer from people to the environment and result in a warmer microclimate. Pedestrianization and traffic-calming schemes are increasingly popular-planning policies in developing cities with compact urban development.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Microclimate Study of Traffic and Pedestrianization Scenarios in a Densely Populated Urban City

Wong¹

2020

Advances in Meteorology

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Urban streets are known to have a significant role in creating urban microclimates. This study aims to empirically quantify temporal and spatial microclimate variation within the same street configurations with pedestrian schemes. To evaluate the urban microclimates at the pedestrian level, a detailed monitoring project was performed at five representative locations near intersections, within a busy street canyon of the typical urban community in a densely populated urban city. Monitoring was done for warm and cool seasons. A strong, significant correlation (p<0.01) was found under multiple time scenarios (traffic, nontraffic, and as a whole) and for both seasons. These findings suggest that the average urban daily temperature was not significantly reduced when there was no vehicular traffic present, whereas pedestrian activity contributed to urban heat regardless of the season. These findings provide an essential foundation for further studies on urban microclimates within pedestrianized areas and will likely lead to better urban design and policy management, especially concerning thermal comfort and Quality of Life at the pedestrian level.

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“…The most noticeable human effect is in the microclimates found in the heavily built-up areas, and this localised microclimate may become more pronounced when runners are tightly bunched in moving packs or "herds" [7,8]. In addition to anthropogenic impacts on the microclimate from the herds of runners, course terrain, landscape, urban configurations, and meteorological conditions will contribute to the microclimate along a marathon route [9], which may influence level of human thermal comfort [10] and performance of each individual runner.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A few young runners collapsed in the middle of the 2012 Hong Kong Marathon run, and one was reported dead [17]. In addition to heating up when exercising, metabolic heat emissions from surrounding people when in a crowd can also affect levels of thermal comfort and/or stress [7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microclimate Variations between Semienclosed and Open Sections of a Marathon Route

Wong

Lai

Hart

2013

Advances in Meteorology

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The Hong Kong Standard Chartered Marathon, held annually, is one of the most popular international marathon events. Its primarily urban environmental setting characterized by high-density urban areas, semienclosed tunnels, and suspension bridges, together with the herds of runners, has an influence on the microclimate along the marathon course. This study focused on assessing and comparing variations in temperature and vapour pressure (vis-à-vis relative humidity) against the crowd of runners, or the herd effects, in two different environmental settings along the marathon course: semienclosed (a tunnel) versus open space (a suspension bridge). A series of small iButtons were deployed at strategic locations along the course to undertake minute-by-minute measurements of temperature and relative humidity. It was found that herd effects of varying degrees were present in both semienclosed and open settings. Various environmental differences also played a role in ameliorating or amplifying the climatological effects of the herd of runners. Our study suggests that microclimate variations in different environmental settings and crowd conditions could have an impact on runners. This new knowledge can inform the design of marathon routes. It also establishes the feasibility of employing the iButton logging sensors for widespread deployment and monitoring of meteorological situations.

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Crowd physiology: the ‘penguin effect’

Cited by 7 publications

References 3 publications

Hypothermia Prevention during the Royal Marriage Party in the Amsterdam Arena Stadium

Hypothermia Prevention during the Royal Marriage Party in the Amsterdam Arena Stadium

A Microclimate Study of Traffic and Pedestrianization Scenarios in a Densely Populated Urban City

Microclimate Variations between Semienclosed and Open Sections of a Marathon Route

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