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Network and Psychological Effects in Urban Movement

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Spatial Information Theory (COSIT 2005)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 3693))

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Abstract

Correlations are regularly found in space syntax studies between graph-based configurational measures of street networks, represented as lines, and observed movement patterns. This suggests that topological and geometric complexity are critically involved in how people navigate urban grids. This has caused difficulties with orthodox urban modelling, since it has always been assumed that insofar as spatial factors play a role in navigation, it will be on the basis of metric distance. In spite of much experimental evidence from cognitive science that geometric and topological factors are involved in navigation, and that metric distance is unlikely to be the best criterion for navigational choices, the matter has not been convincingly resolved since no method has existed for extracting cognitive information from aggregate flows. Within the space syntax literature it has also remained unclear how far the correlations that are found with syntactic variables at the level of aggregate flows are due to cognitive factors operating at the level of individual movers, or they are simply mathematically probable network effects, that is emergent statistical effects from the structure of line networks, independent of the psychology of navigational choices. Here we suggest how both problems can be resolved, by showing three things: first, how cognitive inferences can be made from aggregate urban flow data and distinguished from network effects; second by showing that urban movement, both vehicular and pedestrian, are shaped far more by the geometrical and topological properties of the grid than by its metric properties; and third by demonstrating that the influence of these factors on movement is a cognitive, not network, effect.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bartlett School of Graduate Studies, University College London, 1-19 Torrington Place, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK

    Bill Hillier & Shinichi Iida

Authors
  1. Bill Hillier
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  2. Shinichi Iida
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computing, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, Leeds, United Kingdom

    Anthony G. Cohn

  2. Department of Geography, State University of New York at Buffalo, 105 Wilkeson Quad, 14261, Buffalo, NY, USA

    David M. Mark

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© 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Hillier, B., Iida, S. (2005). Network and Psychological Effects in Urban Movement. In: Cohn, A.G., Mark, D.M. (eds) Spatial Information Theory. COSIT 2005. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3693. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11556114_30

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11556114_30

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-28964-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-32020-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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