Stampedes have been a recurring phenomenon in India. Tragedies of people being trampled to death have taken place at religious gatherings, mass processions, election rallies and even at music concerts. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), a total of 3550 incidents of stampede have taken place in India between 2001 and 2015, leading to 2901 casualties.

The high incidence of such stampedes in India highlights the need for effective crowd management in the country. Research within this thesis will therefore aim to contribute towards gaining a holistic understanding of the organisation of crowd situations. My team and I at Digital Impact Square, Nashik; conducted research at various religious gatherings like Trimbakeshwar, Shirdi and Kapaleshwar where we interacted with different kinds of stakeholders to understand the ecosystem in depth. The findings from these visits, helped us identifying opportunity areas which were then validated with the experts.

The intent is to develop a system that will provide real time insights about crowd count and movement density to the authority so that they can take quick decisions and actions if the situation gets worse. However, along with religious gatherings, the point of application can be at different ecosystems like railway stations, airports and other locations where the frequency of stampedes is high. The aim is to prevent the occurrence of such incidents which further reduces the death ratio.