Abstract This paper investigates vibration characteristics of footbridge induced by crowd random walking, and presents the application of multiple tuned mass dampers (MTMD) in suppressing crowd-induced vibration. A single foot force model for the vertical component of walking-induced force is developed, avoiding the phase angle inaccessibility of the continuous walking force. Based on the single foot force model, the crowd–footbridge random vibration model, in which pedestrians are modeled as a crowd flow characterized with the average time headway, is developed to consider the worst vibration state of footbridge. In this random vibration model, an analytic formulation is developed to calculate the acceleration power spectral density in arbitrary position of footbridge with arbitrary span layout. Resonant effect is observed as the footbridge natural frequencies fall within the frequency bandwidth of crowd excitation. To suppress the excessive acceleration for human normal walking comfort, a MTMD system is used to improve the footbridge dynamic characteristics. According to the random vibration model, an optimization procedure, based on the minimization of maximum root-mean-square (rms) acceleration of footbridge, is introduced to determine the optimal design parameters of MTMD system. Numerical analysis shows that the proposed MTMD designed by random optimization procedure, is more effective than traditional MTMD design methodology in reducing dynamic response during crowd–footbridge resonance, and that the proper frequency spacing enlargement will effectively reduce the off-tuning effect of MTMD.