Social policy makers can benefit from ongoing applied research into the social behaviour of crowds. This is partly about planning, such as management of landscapes, improving infrastructure, decreasing traffic congestion and so on. This is also because local communities need to improve social service delivery.

Cities often have big influxes of people flowing through daily, presenting cultural challenges, increasing demand for emergency response, or requiring information. The Government also sees a need to increase social control in busy areas. This is why many places have laws about what constitutes loitering, often unfairly targeting youth or applying stereotypes of minorities.

Social science can help by providing social insight on how different crowds behave and advising how to improve services so that local council, policy-makers and law enforcement aren’t marginalising vulnerable groups.