Pedestrian Cognition of Street Structure and Route Choices When Strolling: Comparative Study Based on Two Experimental Methods

Abstract

This study aimed to consider the street structure and the relationship between such structure and people’s route choices as well as people’s street structure concerns or preferences based on a common mapping tool. We used the map recording method to conduct a route choice experiment, captured the street structure–strolling route relationship, and performed a route choice experiment in actual space, preliminarily testing the results of the previous experiment. We also conducted interviews to determine how participant perceptions of street space on the map differed from perceptions of actual street space and how paths were chosen. The results show that the participants’ route choice tendencies change with street structure characteristics. Despite a rich built environment in real space, the participants give considerable attention to street structure. Based on the route choice strategies, the participants could recognize the streets on blank maps as real streets and imagine themselves walking on those streets. However, the map recording method has limitations, e.g., the influence of pedestrians’ physical strength on their route choices is not considered.