Researchers Develop a Method to Estimate Headcount of Crowd Using Static Images
On February 10, 2013, 30 million people descended to Allahabad to bathe at the Sangam (the confluence of Yamuna and Ganga) on the occasion of Mauni Amavasya, the most auspicious day of the Maha Kumbh Mela. Disaster struck the Allahabad railway station when about 200 thousand passengers overcrowded the station and rushed to a foot over bridge to change platforms causing a stampede. The bridge collapsed due to the sudden pressure, killing 36 people and injuring at least 39. Can such disasters be avoided? Yes, say Prof. R. Venkatesh Babu and his teammates, Lokesh Boominathan and Srinivas SS Kruthiventi from the Video Analytics Lab at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru. Using Neural Networks and Deep Learning models, they have developed a method to estimate the crowd density and the number of people in the crowd with just the image of the crowd.