A Map Analysis Or Gps Project

[chownah]

There is, of course, a lot of difference in opinion about how many people attended the two anti gov't rallies. Just to get a ballpark grip on how many people could have been in the Royal Plaza, I would like kto find out how big it is...in square metres I guess although I can do conversions if other units are used.

So...all you Google Earth fiends and GPS go getters......can you individually, or working in groups come up with some data. If someone could come up with a map or a distortion corrected photograph along with the scale then I could do the approximations myself.....even reliable estimates of the length and width? Whatever.

[lingling]

There is, of course, a lot of difference in opinion about how many people attended the two anti gov't rallies. Just to get a ballpark grip on how many people could have been in the Royal Plaza, I would like kto find out how big it is...in square metres I guess although I can do conversions if other units are used.

So...all you Google Earth fiends and GPS go getters......can you individually, or working in groups come up with some data. If someone could come up with a map or a distortion corrected photograph along with the scale then I could do the approximations myself.....even reliable estimates of the length and width? Whatever.

Rough estimate: 290x85m

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<kml xmlns="http://earth.google.com/kml/2.0">

<Placemark>

<name>Royal Plaza</name>

<LookAt>

<longitude>100.5134797866614</longitude>

<latitude>13.76872316399632</latitude>

<range>505.4433397999436</range>

<tilt>-4.377283901863618e-010</tilt>

<heading>24.33469673248819</heading>

</LookAt>

<styleUrl>root://styleMaps#default+nicon=0x307+hicon=0x317</styleUrl>

<Point>

<coordinates>100.5121721592811,13.7689052388314,0</coordinates>

</Point>

</Placemark>

</kml>

Edited February 14, 2006 by lingling

[tuky]

There you go mate, now what is your approximation?

[camerata]

I know someone who did a calculation of the Feb 4 crowd using Google Earth. He told me there were 77,000 people at the rally. I believe the Bangkok Post had said 50,000 and Manager said 100,000.

[Neeranam]

Never, ever show a map to a Thai person.

[chownah]

Let's call it 300m long and 100m wide...this might be a slight overestimate but then the crowd might have spilled over into the surrounding area.....300 x 100 = 30,000.

If an area one metre by one metre contains one person then you have 30,000 people. This assumes that there are not aisles for people to walk in and out of the crowd.

If you had 60,000 people packed into this area, each person would have 1/2 of a square metre to stand in....that would be a square approximately 71cm by 71cm....and would not allow any aisles for movement in and out of the crowd.

If you had 90,000 people packed into this area, each person would have 1/3 of a square metre to stand in....that would be a square approximately 58cm by 58cm...and not allow any aisles for movement in and out of the crowd. If you had a shower stall that was 120cm by 120cm you would have 4 people showering together to be at the same density as this scenerio...fun!...but crowded.

All of the images that I saw on tv of the demonstrations did not show the area to be solidly packed with people. I always could see walking areas around the edges and sometimes within the crowd....BUT BUT BUT....I really didn't follow it very closely and I imagine that I did not see what it was like when the maximum number of people were there. So, I will make my estimate but I would like someone who did follow the event closely and did see the extent of the crowd to post what they saw as to 1. were there places to walk around? 2. were people sitting down? 3. were people standing at arms length from each other in some areas or were people shoulder to shoulder throughout the entire area of the Royal Plaza?

Conclusion: In my opinion it is unlikely that 90,000 people would pack into an area of 30,000 square metres in Bangkok. In my opinion it is possible that 60,000 people could pack into that area but it would be very congested...in my opinon this is likely to be a max crowd for 30,000 square metres in Bangkok. In my opinion 30,000 people is a reasonable estimate for a crowd of people stand around and casually conversing with each other and leaving room for aisles for moving into and out of the crowd.

Disclaimer: I have no political agenda here regardless of what others might think. This method of estimating has nothing to do with ideology...it is mathematics and estimates of how closely people will stand to each other in large numbers. I would make the same estimate no matter the political views of the crowd. I may be wrong about how many people can stand per square metre...you're estimation may vary and I hope that people will post to give their opinions about this....maybe someone has some experience in crowd estimation or knows of a website that talks about this skill and the professional techniques used. Also, I am only talking about 30,000 square metres which I'm assuming is the approximate size of the Royal Plaze...if this is wrong or someone has a more refined estimate of the actual area then please post it.....it is obvious that it is possible that the crowds actually spilled out of the Royal Plaze into the surrounds...I don't know if this happened or not....and I'm not attempting to estimate how many people might have been outside the plaza...I could do this if data was provided. If someone wants to argue about my estimate and flame me over it then I will preemptively state that you are a bigot, a fool, and an idiot....and/or a troll.

Quick edit: Using the dimensions of the Plaza as shown on the pictures that Lingling provided (thank you very much, Lingling), the area is only 23,000 square metres approximately....that reduces my three scenerios to 23,000 people for a one metre by one metre area, 46,000 people for a 71cm by71cm area, and 69,000 people for a 58cm by 58cm area....all of these without aisles around the outside or for access into and out of the crowd.

Edited February 15, 2006 by chownah

[Plus]

I think Bangkok Post and Manager people used some different calculations - perhaps counting people by thousands, or "ten thousand"s.

I don't think Google Earth is very useful here - their pictures are archives dating months and years back. You can't see any current events (that's for Cameratas friend).

100,000 or 50,000 are psychological marks. In any case it's a lot of people.

[lingling]

I know someone (a technocrat working for a state agency and definity not pro-Thaksin) who did a calculation of the Feb 4 crowd using Google Earth. He told me there were 77,000 people at the rally. I believe the Bangkok Post had said 50,000 and Manager said 100,000.

Why is it that Thais have access to some kind of real time google earth when the rest of us have to stick to archive imagery..?

I have read several articles in BKK Post, The Nation etc where they also seem to think that GE is real time (and where they make references that make it clear that they don't understand the difference between imaging, communication, weather etc satellites)...

[Plus]

Yeah, the same was with Lumpini. I don't think that even with paid GE account you can order pictures of any place you like taken at the time of your choosing.

[phibunmike]

Chownah, you might find the following interesting (and surprising !!) >>>

----------------------------

Dr. Farouk EL-Baz, director of the Center for Remote Sensing at Boston University, conducted an analysis of the crowd size present during the "Million Man March" held in Washington, DC.

The centre scanned prints from 35mm film and counted people per square metre.

They found the very densest areas had 6 people per square metre. dropping to 4 / sq.m and 2 / sq.m and lower elsewhere.

See ref here http://www.bu.edu/remotesensing/Research/MMM/MMMnew.html

----------------------------

An American military document on crowd control defines:

Light crowd - 1 person per sq. m

Medium crowd - 3 people per sq. m

Heavy crowd - 4 people per sq. m

See ref here http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2002infantry/cline.pdf

----------------------------

Cheers, Mike

[chownah]

Chownah, you might find the following interesting (and surprising !!) >>>

----------------------------

Dr. Farouk EL-Baz, director of the Center for Remote Sensing at Boston University, conducted an analysis of the crowd size present during the "Million Man March" held in Washington, DC.

The centre scanned prints from 35mm film and counted people per square metre.

They found the very densest areas had 6 people per square metre. dropping to 4 / sq.m and 2 / sq.m and lower elsewhere.

See ref here http://www.bu.edu/remotesensing/Research/MMM/MMMnew.html

----------------------------

An American military document on crowd control defines:

Light crowd - 1 person per sq. m

Medium crowd - 3 people per sq. m

Heavy crowd - 4 people per sq. m

See ref here http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2002infantry/cline.pdf

----------------------------

Cheers, Mike

Thanks for the information and the links. I have looked at both but have not read either 100%. I am not surprised at this information.

According to the link you posted relative to the Million Man March, the 6 person per square metre figure was obtained in this fashion:

".....

In areas where the crowd was tightly packed, Dr. El-Baz and his colleagues estimated the maximum density per unit area - that is, how many individuals could stand in a single square meter. He simply measured a square meter on the lab floor and saw how ma ny of his students would fit comfortably. He found that six was a high-density count and concluded that six people per square meter corresponded to the most densely packed areas of the march, such as the base of the Capitol and the area around the half-d ozen closed-circuit television screens on the Mall.

......."

People who are intersted in finding out might actually do what they did and mark out a 1 metre by 1 metre area and get 6 people to stand in it. Surely they will all fit but the question should be do you think from what you have seen on tv or other actual viewing that the entire Royal Plaza was filled up this tightly with no room left for aisles either around and through the crowd. I did not see any images that appeared that way but again I want to stress that my observations are very limited and I will gladly take other people's opinions over mine on this matter. Anyway...if you think that it was filled up everywhere to this degree then the crowd would have been 180,000 people.

For me to feel confident in estimating how many people attended I would have to see some pictures to see how much unfilled space there was during the height of the rally.

Did anyone watch during the height of the rally...and if so was the Royal Plaza ever totally packed from one end to the other with no room for aisles around and through the crowd?...with people standing shoulder to shoulder as it would have been to achieve 6 persons per square metre? Whenever I watched there were a large percentage of people either sitting down. Was there no room for this during the height of the rally. I am sincerely wanting to know because I'm actually trying to find out about how many people attended because I absolutely do not trust anything that comes from any Thai media or source from either side. A panoramic picture of the crowd would be great.

[camerata]

I don't think Google Earth is very useful here - their pictures are archives dating months and years back. You can't see any current events (that's for Cameratas friend).

Sorry if my post wasn't clear. What my friend did was use Google Earth to get an idea of the area of the sections of the plaza that appeared to be in use. I assume someone he knew was there. He wasn't saying he could see the crowd with Google Earth.

Edited February 16, 2006 by camerata

[chownah]

I don't think Google Earth is very useful here - their pictures are archives dating months and years back. You can't see any current events (that's for Cameratas friend).

Sorry if my post wasn't clear. What my friend did was use Google Earth to get an idea of the area of the sections of the plaza that appeared to be in use. I assume someone he knew was there. He wasn't saying he could see the crowd with Google Earth.

Camerata,

What you are saying makes perfect sense to me. In fact, I am sort of going through the same process as your friend.

With Lingling's help I have a good idea about the size of the area in the Royal Plaza. And with Phibunmike's help I have some expert opinions about the density of crowds of different types. Now the one thing that I am missing is eyewitness accounts of what the crowd actually looked like.

I did get a few glimpses of both of the rallies on tv but I don't think that I saw enough to be able to rely on my experience...if I did it would lead to an estimate that is very small and I am sure that I would just get flamed for it.....so....I'm asking for people who had a good view of the extent and character of the crowd at its peak to post what they saw. Things like; did the crowd extend beyond the limits of the Royal Plaza or was it completely contained within the Royal Plaza?....were there areas around the outside of the crowd where people could walk or even wander around?....were there clear aisles within and through the crowd for people to walk in and out of the crowd and for water and food to be brought in?....I thought I saw people waving flags around...were people sitting down?....did they spread blankets out to sit on?...did they have picnic baskets or ice buckets?....if the Plaza was not filled completely then was it 75%...50% These are things that will help in determining the density of the crowd.

Presently my thinking is that the anti-Toxin people would surely have posted here by now if the Royal Plaza had been filled to the brim and overflowing with people...but they have said nothing...so I guess that the Plaza was not full even during the height of the rally...but I don't want to rely on these conjectures...I'd like for people who saw it to say what they saw.

If you could post more of the methodology that your friend used or if you could get copies of the pictures he/she used it would be great.

Chownah

Edited February 16, 2006 by chownah

[camerata]

If you could post more of the methodology that your friend used or if you could get copies of the pictures he/she used it would be great.

Chownah

He didn't take any pictures. He was there at the plaza and made a note of the boundaries of the crowd areas were people were sitting or standing. The crowd stretched down Rachadamnoen as far as the Phitsanulok intersection. Using Google he calculated that the total area was 22,000 square metres. He thinks there would normally be 3 people/sq.m sitting and 5.5/sq.m. standing, giving an estimate of 70,000 people present on the day.

[chownah]

If you could post more of the methodology that your friend used or if you could get copies of the pictures he/she used it would be great.

Chownah

He didn't take any pictures. He was there at the plaza and made a note of the boundaries of the crowd areas were people were sitting or standing. The crowd stretched down Rachadamnoen as far as the Phitsanulok intersection. Using Google he calculated that the total area was 22,000 square metres. He thinks there would normally be 3 people/sq.m sitting and 5.5/sq.m. standing, giving an estimate of 70,000 people present on the day.

Thanks for the reply. I think that your friend is probably correct then...assuming your friend has no political agenda. Seems like my original estimates of crowd densities were on the light side compared to the "experts". I actually went over the old posts from the news section and looked at about 6 pictures that were posted. All of the people who supported the rally posted pictures that were taken from the stage where people were, of course, packed in real solidly making it look like a sea of people. The one picture posted that was from someone who was more or less against the rally was taken at the rear of the crowd and it showed open space and people milling around which tended to minimize the crowd presence. Seems like people took pictures that tended to validate their views...not too surprising. So....I decided I could not really refine my estimate using the pictures at hand. Since you have reported that the entire Royal Plaza was filled at the height of the rally it seems to me that your friends estimate of 70,000 people is probably a good one. In looking around it seems that crowd estimates usually have a plus or minus 20 to 25% error typically.

I guess that the next thing would be for you to encourage your friend to attend the next rally and do an estimate based on the same technique.....that way we would have a reasonably good way to determine if the crowd had grown or not.

Thanks again to you....and your friend,

Chownah

[camerata]

I think the size of the crowd will be largely academic now that Chamlong is bringing his Dharma Army along. It's going to be a good old-fashioned battle of Good versus Evil!

If the good guys need an appropriate theme song, I'd recommend that old Edgar Broughton Band headbangers anthem, Out! Demons Out! I bet there aren't many here who remember that one.