Decision Loads and Route Qualities for Pedestrians — Key Requirements for the Design of Pedestrian Navigation Services

Based on studies about human orientation behaviour, the contribution presents a synopsis of main requirements for pedestrian navigation systems, focussing on the key qualities for designing pedestrian wayfinding systems and the consideration of landmarks as spatial information in portable pedestrian navigation services (e.g. in smart phones, PDA’s, etc.). Mobile navigation services can enable pedestrians to achieve precise spatial information; yet the actual systems are not responsive to individual preferences of route characteristics. In contrast to car drivers, pedestrians are characterized by several specific attributes: they are sensitive in terms of distance, acclivity and climatic conditions; they need salient landmarks for orientation and try to minimize the extent of mental work during the navigational process. Therefore, pedestrian navigation services have to offer a wider range of route qualities: e.g. convenience, attractiveness or safety. To provide efficient navigational information for pedestrians, the consideration of three main route qualities is required: topography (physical quality), topology/attractiveness (psychological quality) and complexity (mental quality). Additionally, the defi nition of specific route characteristics is of great importance for the simulation of pedestrian flows to imitate route choice behaviour. We give an outline of the most important design qualities for the development of route networks suitable for pedestrians’ needs.