Walking into the Future : Exploring WiFi fingerprinting in pedestrian-oriented planning

Abstract: In order to investigate what place WiFi fingerprinting has in pedestrian-oriented planning, an interview study was carried out by conducting 12 semi-structured interviews with different actors working in pedestrian-related fields. The actors represent both the private and the public sector, and work in various geographical scales. The interviews investigate what pedestrian-related questions actors work with, what data their work requires and what methods they use to gather the data. For each of these three categories, topics that appeared in over half of the interviews were analyzed qualitatively. With this analysis, relevant applications of WiFi fingerprinting in pedestrian-oriented planning today are identified, namely determining capacity and dimensions, determining the spatial layout of small-scale environments, measuring congestion and providing validation data. The data needs not filled by WiFi fingerprinting are found to be spot-specific information suitable for qualitative analysis, visitor composition and network level flows and movements. Lastly, WiFi fingerprinting can be combined with other data sources to complement its drawbacks as a piece in a puzzle, such as using spot visits to better understand the reasons behind the flow data.