Effectiveness of crowd-guidance media: comparison of non-immersive virtual reality and field experiments

Abstract

Crowd management requires examining the effectiveness of guiding media to optimize guiding strategies. In this study, we conducted a field experiment and a corresponding online non-immersive virtual reality (VR) experiment that replicated the same guiding media and spatial configurations. To validate the VR outcomes, pedestrian route choice was statistically analyzed using a quasi-binomial generalized linear model with guidance condition, congestion level, and experimental environment as factors. Although the relative effectiveness of the guiding media was consistent between the two experiments, behavioral responses to congestion differed. In the field experiment, higher congestion attenuated guidance effectiveness and encouraged pedestrians to avoid congested routes, whereas these congestion-related behaviors were not fully reproduced in the present non-immersive VR experiment. These findings motivate further VR studies to better capture the effects of crowding on pedestrian route choices.