Modeling of Pedestrian Route Selection in Areas with Different Street Patterns

Abstract

In a large body of reports on simulations of pedestrians’ movement, pedestrians are often assumed to walk along the shortest path. However, they don’t always select the shortest path to destinations. They rather select other preferable route, which varies according to environmental factors. In this paper, we propose a route selection model and analyze factors which affect route selection behavior of pedestrians. Specifically, we discuss the influence of distance to walk, the number of turns, street width, and existence of landmarks on their route selection behavior. Furthermore, the descriptive capabilities of the proposed models are demonstrated through a comparison with results from experiments in which participants select routes on maps, also we discuss the route selection which varies according to the characteristics of geographic urban area or individual characteristics of pedestrians.