Ants Are Polite And May Help Improve Human Crowd Control

Posted by Alex in Animal on August 12, 2007 at 12:31 pm


Add this to the long list of the hardworking ants’ virtues: they’re polite.

Burd, an evolutionary ecologist, says preliminary research into this introduced species of ant backs the ’slower is faster’ paradox of crowd behaviour.

"If the average speed of each individual moving is slower, the whole crowd is evacuated faster, and ants are actually doing this," he says.

"Ants in a panic don’t behave the same way as humans. They stay calm and are polite to each other. They are not trying to save their own lives, but are behaving for the good of the group."

Prof. Burd is now trying to apply what he learned about ant’s crowd control technique into building design to help improve evacuation in cases of emergency:

"Perversely if you simply put a pillar in front of the doorway you increase the evacuation speed," he says.

"Having that obstruction stops people jamming against other people in the doorway."

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9 comments to "Ants Are Polite And May Help Improve Human Crowd Control"

  1. Andrew32
    August 12th, 2007 at 3:12 pm

    "Having that obstruction stops people jamming against other people in the doorway."

    Well, if the entire building was on fire, and they had a pillar blocking the ONLY exit. I'd be pissed off, not nice.

  2. Nora
    August 12th, 2007 at 3:20 pm

    Of course, they'd rather spend less money by putting in a pillar, than more money by putting in another exit.

    Seriously, maybe instead of studying ants, we should be re-thinking our safety standards.

  3. Ali S.
    August 12th, 2007 at 5:19 pm

    Or we could make gigantic doors...sort of like airplane hanger doors...no blockage.

  4. Ant
    August 12th, 2007 at 6:38 pm

    Ants FTW!!

  5. L
    August 12th, 2007 at 6:53 pm

    The pillar doesn't block off the doorway entirely (I would think that should be obvious). This makes sense if you think about it.

    Unfortunately, I think humans have more in common with cows than with ants. We tend to stampede when we're spooked (despite our supposedly superior brains).

  6. Jenny
    August 13th, 2007 at 12:59 am

    The article conveniently fails to mention that worker ants can't reproduce, and thus have no concern for their own life. Instead, they work for the colony and most notably the queen, who can reproduce.

    Humans are individualistic, and thus maximizing the number of people who get out of a building doesn't make sense; getting the hell out yourself does.

  7. aj
    August 13th, 2007 at 1:36 am

    @ Jenny
    I'm pretty sure that maximising the number of people who can escape from a building makes plenty of sense to the designers/ engineers.

  8. Alex
    August 13th, 2007 at 2:52 am

    But in many instances, it's impossible to make the egress larger or to add more of them in existing buildings.

    The study is important in which it suggests that placing a barrier has the paradoxial effect of making the whole evacuation rate faster.

  9. Conor
    August 15th, 2007 at 3:20 am

    I don't care how polite they are, they are still a fucking nussiance and they need to get the hell out of my house!


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