Pushing and Non-pushing Forward Motion in Crowds: A Systematic Psychological Observation Method for Rating Individual Behavior in Pedestrian Dynamics

Pushing behavior impairs people’s sense of well-being in a crowd and represents a significant safety risk. There are nevertheless still a lot of unanswered questions about who behaves how in a crowded situation, and when, where, and why pushing behavior occurs. Beginning from the supposition that a crowd is not thoroughly homogenous and that behavior can change over time, we developed a method to observe and rate forward motion. Based on the guidelines of quantitative content analysis, we came up with four categories: (1) falling behind, (2) just walking, (3) mild pushing, and (4) strong pushing. These categories allow for the classification of the behavior of any person at any time in a video, and thereby the method allows for a comprehensive systematization of individuals’ actions alongside temporal crowd dynamics. The application of this method involves videos of moving crowds including trajectories. The initial results show a very good inter-coder reliability between two trained raters demonstrating the general suitability of the system to describe forward motion in crowds systematically and quantify it for further analysis. In this way, pushing behavior can be better understood and, prospectively, risks better identified. This article offers a comprehensive presentation of this method of observation.