Wayfinding: Choice and Search

Abstract

One of the classical, and probably trivial, reasons for travel is the fact that different things exist in different places. Since there is usually more than one way to travel between two places, every trip involves, in some way or another, a route choice decision. In some cases these decisions are of minor importance to the traveler, but in others they may be very important. The collective outcome of all individual decisions is often important to all of us because it affects the quality of the environment in which we act. Congested roads is a typical example of environmental quality deterioration caused by the collective outcome of individual route choice decisions. On an individual level we often experience other situations in which we have to make a choice between alternative routes, in both familiar and unfamiliar environments. There is nothing better than our own experience to illustrate some of these situations. Experiences like these stimulated our scientific curiosity and finally led us to write this book.