Pedestrian-movement prediction based on mixed Markov-chain model

A method for predicting pedestrian movement on the basis of a mixed Markov-chain model (MMM) is proposed. MMM takes into account a pedestrian's personality as an unobservable parameter. It also takes into account the effects of the pedestrian's previous status. A promotional experiment in a major shopping mall demonstrated that the highest prediction accuracy of the MMM method is 74.4%. In comparison with methods based on a Markov-chain model (MM) and a hidden-Markov model (HMM) (i.e., prediction rates of about 45% and 2%, respectively), the proposed MMM-based prediction method is substantially more accurate. This pedestrian-movement prediction based on MMM using tracking data will make it possible to provide so-called "adaptive mobile services" with proactive functions.