Need to evacuate people quickly through a narrow opening?
Put something in their way.
Physicists timed a crowd of 50 women as they exited as fast as possible through a door, and then repeated the experiment with a 20-centimetre-wide pillar placed 65 centimetres in front of the exit to the left-hand side.
The obstacle improved the exit rate by an extra seven people per minute – from 2.8 people to 2.92 people per second.
via newscientist.com
