Special safety period runs Oct. 23 to Nov. 1

Real-time crowd data to guide tiered response

Yongsan-gu District Mayor Kim Kyung-dae presides over a safety management committee meeting. [Yongsan-gu]
Yongsan-gu District Mayor Kim Kyung-dae presides over a safety management committee meeting. [Yongsan-gu]

Seoul's Yongsan-gu will deploy about 2,550 safety personnel — drawn from the district office, police and fire department — to manage crowds in the Itaewon area ahead of Halloween, the district announced Monday, adding that real-time crowd data will be used to get ahead of congestion before it develops.

The district has designated Oct. 23 through Nov. 1 as a 10-day special Halloween safety period. Based on visitor trends over the past three years, officials expect about 165,000 people to visit the Itaewon area — including the World Food Culture Street and Quinon-gil — during that period.

Since last month, the district has held three coordination meetings with related agencies, including the Seoul Yongsan Police Station, Yongsan Fire Station, Seoul Metro, the 3537th Army Unit and the Itaewon Merchants Service Corps, to finalize the safety plan. Deployed personnel will be assigned to specific duties covering fire prevention, safety and order, traffic management, counterterrorism and crime response, emergency medical care, facility inspections and cleanup.

The centerpiece of this year's plan is a tiered response system driven by real-time crowd data. The district has refined its four-level congestion assessment criteria using crowd data accumulated last year. Officials will monitor crowd density by combining feeds from intelligent closed-circuit television cameras, the Yongsan real-time smart map and passenger exit counts at Itaewon Station.

Monitoring capabilities at the disaster safety operations center and the integrated control center will also be strengthened. In addition to the Itaewon tourism special zone, the district plans to keep a close watch on areas expected to draw large crowds, including Haebangchon, Gyeongnidan-gil and Yongnidan-gil.

On-site response capacity will be reinforced as well. Starting Oct. 30 — the Halloween weekend — a mobile disaster command bus will be stationed at the scene to support information sharing and coordinated response in the event of an emergency.

Earlier, on Oct. 29, 2022, a deadly crowd crush occurred in Itaewon-dong, Yongsan-gu, during the Halloween festival period, killing 159 people and injuring 195 others.

"We will work closely with all relevant agencies to ensure airtight safety management through the very last day," Yongsan-gu District Mayor Kim Kyung-dae said.


ikson@heraldcorp.com