A virtual experiment on pedestrian destination choice: the role of schedules, the environment and behavioural categories

Which locations pedestrians decide to visit and in what order drives circulation patterns in pedestrian infrastructure. Destination choice is understood to arise from individuals trading off different factors, such as the proximity and busyness of destinations. Here, a virtual experiment is used to investigate whether this behaviour depends on the layout of buildings, whether planned or imposed destination schedules influence decisions and whether it is possible to distinguish different choice behaviour strategies in pedestrian populations. Findings suggest that virtual experiments can consistently elicit a range of destination choice behaviours indicating the flexibility of this experimental paradigm. The experimental approach facilitates changing the environment layout while controlling for other factors and illustrates this in itself can be important in determining destination choice. Destination schedules are found to be relevant both when imposed or generated by individuals, but adherence to them varies across individuals and depends on prevailing environmental conditions, such as destination busyness. Different destination choice behaviour strategies can be identified, but their properties are sensitive to the detection methods used, and it is suggested such behaviour classification should be informed by specific use-cases. It is suggested that these contributions present useful starting points for future research into pedestrian destination choice.