A segmentation study of pedestrian weekend activity patterns in a central business district

Initiatives for the regeneration (or renewal) of Central Business Districts (CBD) could benefit from knowledge about how pedestrians interact with the environment. This study examined both cross-sectional and sequential information embedded in weekend activity patterns of pedestrians in the CBD of Hiroshima City (Japan). A multidimensional sequence alignment method was used that accounted for the types of facilities where pedestrians stopped, and whether or not stops occurred in the main street. A subsequent cluster analysis identified five distinctive pedestrian segments. The findings illustrate that, despite the complexities underlying pedestrian behavior, meaningful regularities in activity patterns can be found.