ROUTE GUIDING WITH VERTICAL CONSIDERATION FOR VISITORS ON FOOT 
D. Y. Tseng-Chyan“ and P. C. Lai® 
  
‘PhD candidate, Dept. of Geography, The University of Hong Kong, PokFuLam Road, Hong Kong - chyandy@hkusua.hku.hk 
? Associate Professor, Dept. of Geography, The University of | long Kong, PokFuLam Road, Hong Kong — pclai@hkucc.hku.hk 
Commission II, Working Group 11/6 
KEYWORDS: Spatial Information Sciences, GIS, Navigation, Decision Support, Networks 
ABSTRACT: 
Route guiding has become increasingly essential in pedestrian navigation within the urban space. Large buildings of multi-stories 
(such as hotel, hospital, and airport complexes) dominate the urban setting. When set against an uneven terrain like the case of Hong 
Kong, wayfinding in the urban space is not an easy task. The aim of this research is to identify elements in the urban space on which 
a traveler on foot needs route guidance. The proposed method adopts an aggregated approach in defining a behavioral space within 
a physical environment. By categorizing the types of urban travelers, the audience of the route guiding system can be targeted. An 
analysis of the diversity and demand of wayfinding can help sort out the connections among data, people and environment. Various 
approaches to find optimal paths are assessed against the consideration of vertical movements within built structures and over natural 
landscapes in the urban space. Vertical movements are considered in terms of walking distance, journey time and climbing effort. 
The research is an attempt to understand data needs for the establishment of a route guiding system (using the geographic 
information systems technology) that considers the vertical dimension in navigation on foot. 
1. Introduction 
1.1 Motivation 
With the upgrade of hardware capabilities and the downward 
trend of buying costs, a personal route guiding system would 
seem attractive among people in similar ways as a mobile 
phone. Each route guiding service will target explicit types of 
travelers pending their modes of movement such as walking on 
foot, riding a bicycle, driving a vehicle, taking one or more than 
one types of public transportation, etc. Route guiding services 
must be chosen by users to suit their needs. Until recent years, 
researchers have shifted their focus from the passenger to the 
pedestrian perspectives given advancement in 
telecommunications technologies. This paper is an attempt to 
study what roles geographic information systems (GIS) have in 
navigation and to the wider audiences. 
Pedestrian route guiding service is most relevant in the urban 
space where crowds are gathered and buildings are compact. 
Many wayfinding studies have been conducted in places like 
city town centers, airports, and campuses (Lam et al 2003). But 
very few of them addressed issues caused by the vertical 
dimension. Since pedestrians have the freedom to walk/climb 
or take  lifts/escalators in man-made structures, the 
environmental setting and presentation format, as well as route 
guidance instructions will surely be different from other 
navigation systems. 
This research targets individuals who not only travel on foot but 
are also unfamiliar with the environment enroute. How will the 
vertical dimension affect the data construct of a route guiding 
system is our research focus. The University of Hong Kong 
campus is used as a test environment. The campus information 
will be analyzed, modeled, and simulated to spell out the data 
Lo 
O3 
construct necessary to support route guiding services with 
vertical consideration. 
1.2 Definition of terms 
= Route guiding 
A route is a directed path between a pair of specified 
locations. This route must be determined prior to issuing a 
series of travel instructions. 
= Wayfinding 
Wayfinding is a part of route guiding. It involves means to 
find a way that traverses two locations within a large-scale 
space. 
» Network analysis 
Network analysis concerns the framework and 
methodology for wayfinding based upon graph theory. The 
origin and destination locations are denoted as nodes and 
links are needed to connect a pair of nodes along the path. 
Impedance represents costs against which the flows along 
links are inhibited. 
= [Landmark 
A landmark is an object or structure that marks a locality 
and is used as a point of locational reference. 
1.3 Research Questions 
The primary research focus concerns the development of a non- 
planar route guiding system for new visitors. In addressing the 
research focus, several questions are designed to extract 
relevant information. 
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