Developing a VR tool for studying pedestrian movement and choice behavior

This paper presents a new VR research tool to systemically study pedestrian movement and choice behavior. This new VR tool, called CivilEvac, features a complex multi-level building that is an exact copy of an existing building. CivilEvac allows participants to freely navigate through the building, records their movements and vision fields at 10 fps, which assist the analysis of pedestrian movement and choice behavior. By showcasing CivilEvac, this paper contributes an example of using VR experiments specifically developed to study pedestrian movement and choice behavior. Thereby adding to the discussion surrounding the usage of VR technologies for studying pedestrian behavior.