Shopping behaviour in downtown shopping areas: A detailed pedestrian model

This paper describes a model representing shoppers' behaviour in downtown shopping areas. The model assumes a network of shopping street segments. At the intersections of shopping street segments, shoppers choose one of the adjacent street segments. It is assumed that in the beginning of the shopping trip, shoppers want to move away from the shopping area entry point and want to move back to this point later on. The probability of choosing a particular street segment depends on the attractiveness and location of outlets in the shopping area. While walking through a shopping street segment, the shopper passes outlets. Each outlet will be considered to be visited by the shopper. The decision to enter an outlet depends on the attractiveness of the outlet and whether similar outlets have been passed or visited before. Monte Carlo Simulation is used to simulate shopping behaviour.