Measuring the size of a crowd using Instagram

Federico Botta, Helen Susannah Moat and Tobias Preis
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Federico Botta: Data Science Lab, Behavioural Science, 65915Warwick Business School, UK

Environment and Planning B, 2020, vol. 47, issue 9, 1690-1703

Abstract: Measuring the size of a crowd in a specific location can be of crucial importance for crowd management, in particular in emergency situations. Here, using two football stadiums as case studies, we present evidence that data generated through interactions with the social media platform Instagram can be used to generate estimates of the size of a crowd. We present a detailed analysis of the impact of varying the time period and spatial area considered for the collection of Instagram data. Crucially, we demonstrate how to address issues that arise from changes in the usage of a social media platform such as Instagram. Our findings show how social media datasets carrying location-based information may help provide near to real-time measurements of the size of a crowd.

Keywords: Data science; computational social science; complex systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envirb:v:47:y:2020:i:9:p:1690-1703

DOI: 10.1177/2399808319841615

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