Crowding is a reality in which we find ourselves involved daily. The crowd produced in a traffic jam is a dynamic entity inwhich the application of physics, mathematics and biology can provide practical help to unders...Crowding is a reality in which we find ourselves involved daily. The crowd produced in a traffic jam is a dynamic entity inwhich the application of physics, mathematics and biology can provide practical help to understand how and why this problematicsituation occurs and what solutions can be found to resolve it. In the mobility education project ＂SicuraMENTE＂, we carried out anexperiment on the conduct of a crowd by simulating a situation of intense city traffic. Taking a cue from an experimental situationproposed in traffic physics, we have verified that a route with limited access can generate a traffic jam and the crowd of pedestrianscan be mitigated by forcing the crowd to use dedicated streets. Taking the outgoing time of the student crowd from the outlet road,with and without the presence of an obstacle in the middle of the roadway, it was found that the traffic jam is resolved more quicklyin the situation with an obstacle because the flow of people is divided into two separate channels, reducing the probability that twoindividuals are close and that this creates an obstruction （example of counter-intuitive physical principle）. We also verified that thespeed of the elements of the crowd influences the formation of traffic jams, which are on average more likely in the case of higherspeed. These important aspects in the design of road networks and transport infrastructure have made students reason on physics＇topics, but also on the correct conduct in traffic. The multidisciplinary approach in education for safe and sustainable mobility, soinnovative in Italy, turned out to be effective in terms of teaching in the frame of a mix of academic disciplines, in which road safetyeducation has become the context and the goal.展开更多
文摘Crowding is a reality in which we find ourselves involved daily. The crowd produced in a traffic jam is a dynamic entity inwhich the application of physics, mathematics and biology can provide practical help to understand how and why this problematicsituation occurs and what solutions can be found to resolve it. In the mobility education project ＂SicuraMENTE＂, we carried out anexperiment on the conduct of a crowd by simulating a situation of intense city traffic. Taking a cue from an experimental situationproposed in traffic physics, we have verified that a route with limited access can generate a traffic jam and the crowd of pedestrianscan be mitigated by forcing the crowd to use dedicated streets. Taking the outgoing time of the student crowd from the outlet road,with and without the presence of an obstacle in the middle of the roadway, it was found that the traffic jam is resolved more quicklyin the situation with an obstacle because the flow of people is divided into two separate channels, reducing the probability that twoindividuals are close and that this creates an obstruction （example of counter-intuitive physical principle）. We also verified that thespeed of the elements of the crowd influences the formation of traffic jams, which are on average more likely in the case of higherspeed. These important aspects in the design of road networks and transport infrastructure have made students reason on physics＇topics, but also on the correct conduct in traffic. The multidisciplinary approach in education for safe and sustainable mobility, soinnovative in Italy, turned out to be effective in terms of teaching in the frame of a mix of academic disciplines, in which road safetyeducation has become the context and the goal.
