1. Background
Many people naively think that it is easier to memorise the structure of a grid street pattern than a non-grid street pattern. However, since people stroll in urban areas not for pure way-finding but shopping or sightseeing etc., it is more important for them to recognise the ways to go than to create a cognitive map. In a non-grid street pattern district, each crossing has more characteristics. Such crossings may be memorised easier by pedestrians, who concentrate on other activities besides way-finding. This study, therefore, aimed to clarify the effects of crossing-shapes on the route recognition by comparing the results of a grid street pattern case with a non-grid street pattern case.
2. Methods
An experimental investigation was carried out in a residential district in Tokyo with a total of 28 healthy participants aged between 19–25. The participants were divided into two groups with 14 people each to conduct the same task in different areas of the district: one has a grid street pattern, and the other has a non-grid street pattern. In a trial, participants were instructed to remember a route (Figs. 1, 2) by actually following the author so that they can reverse the route afterwards alone. After learning the route, they were asked whether they passed through the crossings that the auther presented and the reason why they decided so. Those crossings were presented by photos (Photo1, Photo2), and also on-site guided by the author via another route (Figs. 3, 4). The presented crossings contained one-third of dummy crossings that had been taken in the same area but not on the learning route (Table1). Finally, they were tasked to draw a map of the learned route on a piece of white paper.
3. Results
The precision of memory:
The results show that the participants of the non-grid area remembered crossings much more precisely than those of the grid area. In particular, the participants of the non-grid area had more confidence about the crossings which they did not pass than those of the grid area (Figs. 8, 9). In a grid area, participants found it hard to judge a crossing as “never passed” where they actually had not pass through. When a participant remembered whether he/she passed the crossing, he/she relatively remembered also the direction in which they came from and went to (Fig. 11). Regarding the selected directions, there was no difference in the correct answer ratio between street patterns.
Cognitive map:
Fig. 7 shows that the participants in both areas could know the direction of the start point of the learning route from the goal point quite correctly; however, more participants could answer with accuracy in the grid area. By drawing a cognitive route map, more crossings were missed in the grid street pattern than the non-grid street pattern (Figs. 12, 13).
4. Conclusions
The study revealed that pedestrians could decide on crossings in a non-grid street pattern area more correctly, and also with confidence, whether they have passed there before than in a grid pattern. Hence, in practice, pedestrians may be able to walk around with less worry about getting lost in non-grid street pattern areas. However, there is still room for research on the precision of the connection of individual crossing memories. Further studies are required to build a pedestrian route recognition model in non-grid pattern areas.
