Activation of shopping pedestrian agents : empirical estimation results

This paper reports progress in the development of a multi-agent model which simulates pedestrian destination, route choice and scheduling behavior. In this model, the simulation of movement is embedded in a more comprehensive model of activity scheduling and choice behavior. We assume that pedestrians will be activated to visit a store if the store is suited to conduct any of the activities that are still scheduled, and that they are aware of this store. When pedestrians are aware of a store and the store is included in their consideration set, they will be activated and gradually move to a store. We assume that activation level is a stochastic variable. To estimate the activation function, survey data were collected. Visitors were interviewed about various aspects of their behavior such as familiarity with stores, motivation, and expectations about store aspects like assortment, sphere, quality and service. In this paper, we will discuss some of the findings of this data collection.