Assessment of Design Features for Crowd Control in Sport Centres in Nigerian Universities

Abstract

In view of the large crowd that attends sport events, the rate of crowd disaster and disorderliness is regularly high. An increase rate of accidents and injuries among participants at public events, particularly Sports Events has turned out to be one of the significant worries to researchers and professionals. Sport events in a student environment attracts crowd, the students, staff and other people who attends sport events constitute crowds whose safety must be guaranteed as crowded spaces are potentially risky. Therefore, the aim of this research is to assess the crowd control design features and strategies adopted in the design of Sport Complexes in selected Nigerian Universities. The research used a mixed method approach in the collection of data. This includes questionnaires, and interview on the respondents (students and staff) as well as participants’ observation. These data were collected in five Nigerian Universities randomly selected. The study revealed that there are some salient spatial crowd control issues that are not featured in the design of sport centers. The paper therefore, recommends the integration of crowd control measures in the design of sport arena in Nigerian Universities.