Lost in transportation: Information measures and cognitive limits in multilayer navigation

Area of Science:

• Urban planning
• Cognitive science
• Network analysis

Background:

• Urban transportation networks grow in complexity and multimodality.
• Observed transitions in navigation strategies suggest cognitive overload in complex networks.

Purpose of the Study:

• Quantitatively characterize navigation difficulty in complex urban environments.
• Determine if urban navigation exceeds human cognitive limits.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of the 15 largest metropolitan transportation networks worldwide.
• Estimation of information limits for trip determination.
• Comparison of navigation information requirements with cognitive limits.

Main Results:

• An information limit for urban trip navigation is estimated at approximately 8 bits.
• Readability of maps is suggested to be limited to around 250 connection points.
• Multimodal networks significantly increase navigation information load.
• Over 80% of trips in major cities like New York, Paris, and Tokyo exceed the 8-bit cognitive limit.

Conclusions:

• Multimodal transportation systems in large cities surpass human cognitive processing capabilities.
• Existing models of urban navigation require substantial revision to account for cognitive overload.
• Findings suggest a need for redesigned urban navigation systems to align with human cognitive constraints.