Movares, in collaboration with Utrecht University, developed an advanced crowd simulation framework to support the 2015 Tour de France Grand Départ in Utrecht. With hundreds of thousands of spectators expected, the simulation played a crucial role in helping the municipal government plan the event area and anticipate crowd flow for both safety and optimal visitor experience.

Leveraging Utrecht University’s cutting-edge software – capable of simulating up to 15,000 autonomous pedestrians in real-time within detailed virtual environments – Movares helped visualize and test various crowd scenarios. This digital foresight enabled proactive decisions, such as implementing one-way pedestrian routes, adding temporary bridges, and adjusting fencing layouts to prevent congestion.

La Vuelta Holanda: SimCrowds in action

For La Vuelta Holanda, Movares partnered with uCrowds to assess mobility, accessibility, parking, and visitor capacity across multiple modes of transport – car, bicycle, public transit, and walking. The peloton passed through Utrecht, Den Bosch, and Breda, drawing over 500,000 cycling fans, with peak crowds of 300,000 during the opening in Utrecht alone.

To manage this influx, uCrowds’ SimCrowds software was deployed, simulating pedestrian movement across the city’s narrow streets. The model incorporated five levels of human behavior, from decision-making to local movement, capturing realistic crowd dynamics in a virtual environment.

From Digital Twin to real-world impact

The process began with creating a 3D digital twin of the event space. Key data was gathered from the municipality and event organizers, including visitor profiles and target groups, main travel routes and transport modes, entry and exit points, and street layouts and expected crowd densities. This data was fed into the simulation, allowing organizers to run accelerated crowd flow scenarios. The results identified potential bottlenecks, collision points, and safety risks, enabling timely interventions before the event.