A myriad of novel applications have emerged nowadays for different types of navigation systems. One of their most frequent applications is <i>Wayfinding</i>. Since there are significant differences between the nature of the pedestrian wayfinding problems and of those of the vehicles, navigation services which are designed for vehicles are not appropriate for pedestrian wayfinding purposes. In addition, diversity in environmental conditions of the users and in their preferences affects the process of pedestrian wayfinding with mobile devices. Therefore, a method is necessary that performs an intelligent pedestrian routing with regard to this diversity. This intelligence can be achieved by the help of a <i>Ubiquitous</i> service that is adapted to the <i>Contexts</i>. Such a service possesses both the <i>Context-Awareness</i> and the <i>User-Awareness</i> capabilities. These capabilities are the main features of the ubiquitous services that make them flexible in response to any user in any situation. In this paper, it is attempted to propose a multi-criteria path optimization method that provides a Ubiquitous Pedestrian Way Finding Service (UPWFS). The proposed method considers four criteria that are summarized in <i>Length, Safety, Difficulty</i> and <i>Attraction</i> of the path. A conceptual framework is proposed to show the influencing factors that have effects on the criteria. Then, a mathematical model is developed on which the proposed path optimization method is based. Finally, data of a local district in Tehran is chosen as the case study in order to evaluate performance of the proposed method in real situations. Results of the study shows that the proposed method was successful to understand effects of the contexts in the wayfinding procedure. This demonstrates efficiency of the proposed method in providing a ubiquitous pedestrian wayfinding service.
PROPOSING A MULTI-CRITERIA PATH OPTIMIZATION METHOD IN ORDER TO PROVIDE A UBIQUITOUS PEDESTRIAN WAYFINDING SERVICE