The role of survey details for wayfinding problem in complex pedestrian underground interchange with poor architectural configuration

•People who have a sense of direction are not always better in wayfinding performance than people without a sense of direction.•People who have a sense of direction are exposed to the fault of “Dislocation” in design.•Dislocations in the design are something rather than monotonous in space or absence of landmarks.•Dislocations in the design impair the proper functioning of the sense of direction. Our goal was to identify the gaps between “Route” and “Survey” details for wayfinding in complex underpasses with poor architectural configuration. We analyzed Route and Survey details efficiency using decision tree algorithms. Unlike isolated environments and virtual experiments, this study was conducted in real-life conditions of an extreme case. A travelers’ attitudinal questionnaire with a wayfinding performance test was carried out in the Valiasr underpass (Tehran, Iran). Previous research from a psychological point of view demonstrated that people’s general ratings about wayfinding descriptions were higher for “Route details” (e.g. left-right turns, distances) rather than for “Survey details” (e.g. cardinal directions and landmarks). Although people with a good self-reported sense of direction prefer “Survey descriptions” relative to those with a poor self-reported sense of direction, People with a poor self-reported sense of direction made more wayfinding errors than did people with a good self-reported sense of direction. The results of current research from a UUS's design point of view show that if “Route details” mainly ignore “Survey details” it may make wayfinding difficult for people who have a good sense of direction as a quest traveler. The wayfinding problem for travelers with a good sense of direction will remain until they solve the dilemma of the wrong estimation. Instead, people with a poor sense of direction would not have such a dilemma. Therefore, the results add a condition to previous findings for use in complex underpasses. According to the results, designers of complex pedestrian underpasses must consider the concept of “Dislocation” because in the wayfinding problem of this kind of UUS the role of “Survey details” and “Route details” is not completely separate.