According to CCTV footage, the accident at Elphinstone Road station happened in a matter of nine minutes. And once the commotion and stampede began, it would have been very difficult to manage the situation.
The immediate contributing factor was the unexpected rain, which meant a gradually increasing number commuters reluctant to leave the foot over-bridge’s shelter. Then, every train that stopped at the station brought more commuters, adding to the crowd. But no one at Elphinstone Road station believed that something catastrophic could happen. Why?
The reason is most of us humans are subject to the optimism bias: it is difficult for us to believe that anything wrong will happen, the more so if there is no past history of such a problem. Station officials would have seen similar crowds countless times before. But due to some stroke of luck the situation diffused without external intervention. On that fateful day, railway and police personnel would have believed this situation too would pass.
We don’t understand risk as a numerical probability of an event; we feel it. The absence of the feeling of risk could be the single largest cause of accidents across the world. Until the tragedy, no one in Elphinstone Road station had a sense of heightened risk.
What we need, then, is a behaviour intervention.
It starts with scenario planning for contingencies, with markers indicating the level of risk for different situations. A few officials in all stations must be trained to be sensitive to these markers so that they have a heightened feeling of risk.
These people will make sure that they spot situations with increasing levels of risk and take steps to diffuse them before it blows up in our face. A single police personnel blowing a shrill whistle or just shouting instructions at the entrances to the foot overbridges would have communicated the right amount of risk to commuters.
The sense of risk must be communicated to commuters. But traditional warning signs with images of skulls and lengthy messages will be ignored. Instead non-conscious signages can be used to inject the appropriate amount of fear. Design interventions similar to intermittent painting of sleepers in yellow to warn trespassers of an incoming train’s speed could go a long way in increasing the risk perception among commuters.
One should not forget that the emotion of fear has saved more human lives than all medical care and antibiotics put together.
Biju Dominic is co-founder and CEO of Final Mile Consulting, a Behaviour Architecture firm
