How building layout properties influence pedestrian route choice and route recall

How pedestrians find and choose routes in buildings is a fundamental research topic that is immediately relevant to building design and safety. However, few studies have explored the relationship between pedestrian route choice and building layout in a systematic way. Here, we introduce a method based on spatial network theory for generating buildings with various layout properties. We conduct a virtual experiment with over 200 participants and many generated buildings to investigate how layout properties influence different aspects of pedestrian route choice. Our findings suggest route recall is worse in buildings that have more connections and possible routes, even when the overall size of buildings and length of routes is kept constant. Pedestrians also prefer more regular building layouts and are more likely to adopt the heuristic of walking along the outer edges of buildings the less regular they are and the more connections they have.