Managing start waves for mass running events

Abstract

Lap2go is a Portuguese timekeeping for several types of sport events. The challenge posed by this company is how to better manage the starting waves for mass running events in order to avoid congestions, taking into account each participant natural running pace, the total number of participants and, if possible, the topography and width of the road. As a case study the group has received the time each participant has crossed the starting line, the 5 Kilometre mark and the finishing line for a 10 Kilometre race, with more than 8000 participants in total, for which three starting waves have been set by the organization. First, we performed an analysis on the provided dataset, trying to evaluate the procedure used by Lap2Go to decide the waves formation and their releasing times, and afterwards we approached this problem in two ways: (i) developing an optimization model to set each wave starting time and (ii) constructing a mathematical particle model of the behaviour of runners, describing the change in each runners position along the time. The model takes into account the impact of runners density as of topography on the speed of each runner. We show the results of some simulations for both those mathematical models, considering the race data provided by Lap2Go. Moreover, we also present simulation results for other possible wave configurations with respect to the second model. The model for simulating race conditions on arbitrary tracks can help organizers to decide the best way to distribute runners into waves and when to release each wave.