The Impact of Perception and Wayfinding on Pedestrian Movements

When simulating non-trivial scenarios of pedestrian movements it is necessary to model both the small-scale movements to a visible target (operational level) and the process to find and select routes leading to a possibly non-visible destination (tactical level). A huge number of different approaches modelling the operational level of pedestrian movements are already proposed. However, the majority of models of the tactical level are still restricted to shortest path algorithms or similar algorithms determining minimal travel efforts. These approaches assume that pedestrians have unrestricted knowledge about the spatial structure of buildings or facilities and are able to assess lengths and travel times of all possible routes. In fact, in reality the knowledge degree of people differs widely. In addition, wayfinding is a complex process including various tools and strategies which are represented only roughly by minimum-effort calculations. To improve the situation we present modelling approaches representing tools and strategies of human wayfinding and decision making based on evidence from psychological studies and literature. Furthermore, an approach has been created to consider perception in addition to decision making to model wayfinding. In particular, we analyse the consequences and differences appearing in the simulation of complex scenarios when considering more elaborated wayfinding procedures instead of using classic minimum effort calculations. To quantify the consequences and differences we particularly investigate resulting evacuation times. For this purpose we utilize the results of evacuation simulations taken place in the National Gallery of Arts in Washington, D.C.. Comparing the results of simulations considering wayfinding approaches and shortest path calculations we discuss pros and cons, limits, possibilities and the importance of perception and wayfinding models.