Design Differences in Pedestrian Navigation Systems Depending on the Availability of Carriable Navigation Information

In this paper, the differences in navigation information design, which is important for kiosk-type pedestrian navigation systems, were experimentally examined depending on presence or absence of carriable navigation information in order to acquire the knowledge to contribute design guidelines of kiosk-type pedestrian navigation systems. In particular, we used route complexity information calculated using a regression equation that contained multiple factors. In the absence of carriable navigation information, both the destination arrival rate and route deviation rate improved. Easy routes were designed as M (17 to 39 characters in Japanese), while complicated routes were denoted as L (40 or more characters in Japanese). On the contrary, in the presence of carriable navigation information, the user’s memory load was found to be reduced by carrying the same navigation information as kiosk-type terminals. Thus, the reconsideration of kiosk-type pedestrian navigation systems design, e.g., the means of presenting navigation information, is required. For example, if the system attaches importance to a high destination arrival rate, L_Carrying without regard to route complexity is better. If the system attaching importance to the low route deviation rate, M_Carrying in the case of easy routes and L_Carrying in the case of complicated routes have been better. Consequently, this paper presents the differences in the designs of pedestrian navigation systems depending on whether carriable navigation information is absent or present. key words: pedestrian navigation, route complexity, normalized travel time, route deviation rate, multiple regression analysis