Enhancing Role of Guiding Signs Setting in Metro Stations with Incorporation of Microscopic Behavior of Pedestrians

Abstract

In the metro operation environment, guiding signs provide direction and route conversion instructions to pedestrians. In metro stations with massive passenger flow, the rationality of sign setting would exert distinct effects on the efficiency of passenger flow. Currently, most studies on guiding signs focus on architecture, aesthetics and simulation. However, perspectives from humanization of pedestrian guidance signs such as pedestrian behavior needs and pedestrian cognition were seldom proposed. In this paper, the microscopic behavior characteristics data of pedestrians at different positions in typical metro stations were collected through pedestrian tracking experiments. After analyzing the characteristics of pedestrians’ microscopic behavior in metro stations, otherness of walking speed was found out among pedestrians in different types of passageways. The walking speed of pedestrians in closed-type passageways is higher than other types. Moreover, pedestrian speed at the stairs adjacent to the platform is higher than that at the stairs not adjacent to the platform. With the increase of crowd density, the change of walking speed of pedestrians can be represented by a unimodal curve. Finally, the key points of optimal setting of guiding signs in different regions and different periods were obtained according to the result analysis of the experiment. The research results of this paper can provide theoretical support and technical guidance for the optimal establishment of pedestrian guiding signs in metro stations with massive passenger flow.

How Do Subway Signs Affect Pedestrians’ Wayfinding Behavior through Visual Short-Term Memory?

“…Pedestrians' memory capacity regarding subway signs gradually decreases as time goes by. Considering that STM capacity changes with time, it seems reasonable to refresh pedestrians' memory every 20 s. Through the literature analysis of pedestrian walking speed, we find that pedestrians of different ages have different walking speeds for different travel purposes, about 1.0-1.5 m/s [33][34][35][36][37], with older pedestrians usually having a lower speed. The setting of subway signs should give full consideration to the information needs of pedestrians with slow walking speed, so we take 1.0 m/s as the lower limit of the walking speed and multiply it with the 20 s time interval of information retelling.…”

A Sustainable Evaluation Method for a Tourism Public Wayfinding System: A Case Study of Shanghai Disneyland Resort

“…(1) The score for the former was 0.0148, with a standard value of 0.0086 and a percentage of 171.79%. (2) The score for the latter was 0.08, with a standard value of 0.0357 and a percentage of 224.07%. According to the number ratio of the two types of signs in Disneyland, the calculation coefficients were 0.8112 and 0.1888, respectively; thus, the total score was 181.67%.…”

“…(1) The identification of popular scenic spots by directional signs was sufficient, whereas the identification of entrances and exits could be further strengthened. (2) The guiding distance is the distance between the position of the directional signs and the scenic spots referred to on them.…”

“…Fuzzy information adversely affects the activities of tourists, so tourism managers have begun realizing the importance of the wayfinding system design in recent years [1]. The public wayfinding system is a standard instruction system for spatial environments in open areas that is meant to help people find information on their destinations [2]. The wayfinding system design is an overall collection formed by both the signboard contents and its layouts in a certain area, including different elements such as the design of color, font, height, and size of a single signboard, and the location structure and density control of a large amount of wayfinding signs.…”

“…1 : investigation in June 2017,2 : investigation in June 2019.Sustainability 2020, 12, x FOR PEER REVIEW 15 of 17…”