At the Mall With Children: Group Size and Pedestrian Economy of Movement

The study of pedestrian locomotion in public environments includes both velocity and trajectory of movement. Within public settings such as shopping malls, pedestrians display economy of movement by minimizing the distance (trajectory) walked to arrive at a destination (Bitgood & Dukes, 2006). Although groups of pedestrians have been found to walk more slowly than individuals (Finnis & Walton, 2008), there has been little systematic investigation of how the size of a group and the presence of accompanying children independently affect pedestrian trajectory and velocity. Five naturalistic observational studies with 1,050 observations were conducted at an enclosed retail shopping mall. Neither the size of groups nor the number of children had a significant effect on trajectory of movement. However, both group size and number of children independently predicted pedestrian velocity. Results have implications for predictions of pedestrian facility throughput.