Spatiotemporal sequencing processes of pedestrians in urban retail environments

In this article, the authors determine the extent to which several decision heuristics are present in pedestrians' spatial shopping behavior in downtown retail environments. Two factors, length of the observed route and observed sequence in which destinations are visited, were used to define temporal heuristics. Further, two spatial heuristics were investigated: the tendency of some pedestrians to choose first the destination farthest away from the point they entered the city center and the tendency of others to choose first the destination closest to their entry point. Empirical analysis demonstrated that only a small proportion of the pedestrians reveals optimal choice behavior