Effects of audio-visual interventions using left- and right-turning pictograms on the route selection of pedestrians without specific route preferences to alleviate congestion at a train station

Abstract

Congestion that occurs in public spaces, such as train stations, can compromise safety and lead to economic losses. This study addresses the issue by proposing the use of intuitive audiovisual interventions to guide pedestrian route selection based on congestion status. The intervention assumes a scenario where pedestrians without specific route preferences are navigating through a junction of multiple paths leading to the same destination within a station. The audio-visual content comprised pictograms of people turning left and right as a visual stimulus, accompanied by a noise as an auditory stimulus. The strength of the induction was manipulated by the ratio of the number of pictograms turning left and right and the sound pressure ratio of the left and right channel noise. Twenty-five participants rated which route they would prefer to take, left or right, after viewing the audiovisual content embedded in a background image of scenes of forks in paths at a station. The results demonstrate that the rated value of the intention to choose a route was more likely to be selected for visual stimuli when the number of pictograms was smaller. Furthermore, this study confirmed the effects of inducement strength. The effect of the difference in the final left-right sound pressure ratio was partially confirmed for auditory stimuli. The audiovisual intervention proposed in this study could be an effective means of influencing pedestrian route-selection behavior, leading to reduced congestion in public spaces.