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International Conference on Spatial Information Theory

COSIT 2009: Spatial Information Theory pp 489–504Cite as

The Role of Angularity in Route Choice

An Analysis of Motorcycle Courier GPS Traces

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 5756))

Abstract

The paths of 2425 individual motorcycle trips made in London were analyzed in order to uncover the route choice decisions made by drivers. The paths were derived from global positioning system (GPS) data collected by a courier company for each of their drivers, using algorithms developed for the purpose of this paper. Motorcycle couriers were chosen due to the fact that they both know streets very well and that they do not rely on the GPS to guide their navigation. Each trace was mapped to the underlying road network, and two competing hypotheses for route choice decisions were compared: (a) that riders attempt to minimize the Manhattan distance between locations and (b) that they attempt to minimize the angular distance. In each case, the distance actually traveled was compared to the minimum possible either block or angular distance through the road network. It is usually believed that drivers who know streets well will navigate trips that reduce Manhattan distance; however, here it is shown that angularity appears to play an important role in route choice. 63% of trips made took the minimum possible angular distance between origin and destination, while 51% of trips followed the minimum possible block distance. This implies that impact of turns on cognitive distance plays an important role in decision making, even when a driver has good knowledge of the spatial network.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Bartlett School of Graduate Studies, UCL, London

    Alasdair Turner

Authors
  1. Alasdair Turner
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, University of Iowa, 316 Jessup Hall, 52242, Iowa City, IA, USA

    Kathleen Stewart Hornsby

  2. Naval Academy Research Institute, 29240, Brest Naval, France

    Christophe Claramunt

  3. Groupe Cognition Humaine, LIMSI-CNRS, Université de Paris-Sud, 91403, Orsay, France

    Michel Denis

  4. LIMSI-CNRS, Université de Paris-Sud, 91403, Orsay, France

    Gérard Ligozat

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© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Turner, A. (2009). The Role of Angularity in Route Choice. In: Hornsby, K.S., Claramunt, C., Denis, M., Ligozat, G. (eds) Spatial Information Theory. COSIT 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5756. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03832-7_30

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03832-7_30

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-03831-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-03832-7

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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