Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Brief Communication
  • Published:

Theoretical mechanics

Crowd synchrony on the Millennium Bridge

Nature volume 438, pages 43–44 (2005)Cite this article

Footbridges start to sway when packed with pedestrians falling into step with their vibrations.

Abstract

Soon after the crowd streamed on to London's Millennium Bridge on the day it opened, the bridge started to sway from side to side: many pedestrians fell spontaneously into step with the bridge's vibrations, inadvertently amplifying them. Here we model this unexpected and now notorious phenomenon — which was not due to the bridge's innovative design as was first thought — by adapting ideas originally developed to describe the collective synchronization of biological oscillators such as neurons and fireflies. Our approach should help engineers to estimate the damping needed to stabilize other exceptionally crowded footbridges against synchronous lateral excitation by pedestrians.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Effect of pedestrian crowding on London's Millennium Bridge.
Figure 2: Simulated outbreak of wobbling and crowd synchronization on the Millennium Bridge.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Dallard, P. et al. Struct. Eng. 79, 17–33 (2001).

    Google Scholar 

  2. Dallard, P. et al. J. Bridge Eng. 6, 412–417 (2001).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. McRobie, A., Morgenthal, G., Lasenby, J. & Ringer, M. Proc. Inst. Civ. Eng. Bridge Eng. 156, 71–79 (2003).

    Google Scholar 

  4. Roberts, T. M. Proc. Inst. Civ. Eng. Bridge Eng. 156, 155–160 (2003).

  5. Newland, D. E. Proc. Inst. Mech. Eng. 218, 477–492 (2004).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Nakamura, S. J. Struct. Eng. 130, 32–37 (2004).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Glass, L. & Mackey, M. C. From Clocks to Chaos: The Rhythms of Life (Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, 1988).

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  8. Winfree, A. T. The Geometry of Biological Time 2nd edn (Springer, New York, 2001).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  9. Kuramoto, Y. Chemical Oscillations, Waves and Turbulence (Springer, Berlin, 1984).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  10. Strogatz, S. H. Physica D 143, 1–20 (2000).

    Article  ADS  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Cornell University, Ithaca, 14853-1503, New York, USA

    Steven H. Strogatz & Daniel M. Abrams

  2. Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 1PZ, UK

    Allan McRobie

  3. University of Maryland, College Park, 20742, Maryland, USA

    Bruno Eckhardt & Edward Ott

  4. Fachbereich Physik, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Marburg, 35032, Germany

    Bruno Eckhardt

Authors
  1. Steven H. Strogatz
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Daniel M. Abrams
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Allan McRobie
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Bruno Eckhardt
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Edward Ott
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Steven H. Strogatz.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Strogatz, S., Abrams, D., McRobie, A. et al. Crowd synchrony on the Millennium Bridge. Nature 438, 43–44 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/438043a

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/438043a

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing