Route planning in London – a taxi driver’s perspective

An exploration of how the findings from research investigating how London taxi drivers acquire and use ‘The Knowledge” can inform or explain principles in wayfinding design. Eva-Maria Griesbauer (Institute of Behavioural Neuroscience (IBN), UCL) presented an overview of her research with licensed London taxi drivers – the navigation experts of the city. The ability of London black cab drivers to flexibly plan routes between any two places in London without consulting a physical map (or satnav) is unique and has been a focus of spatial cognition research over the last two decades. Eva investigated how taxi drivers learn and cognitively represent a complex, real-world environment such as London. One of her main studies addressed the question of how these mental representations might be used to plan routes efficiently, as well as how the brain might process this type of spatial information.

About our speaker

Eva-Maria Griesbauer – PhD student, University College London, is a member of the Spatial Cognition Group, led by Prof Hugo Spiers, at the IBN. After completing degrees in mathematics and physics at the University of Augsburg in 2014, Eva moved to  UCL to continue her studies. She completed a MSc dissertation project on the effect of a constantly changing environment on rodent navigation. Subsequently, she shifted her focus to human spatial navigation, with an emphasis on the London street network. Her current projects utilise London licensed taxi drivers and “the knowledge” to test cognitive mapping models with the complex network that is London. To answer questions around cognitive mapping and spatial cognition with an ecologically valid framework, Eva collaborates closely with computational neuroscientists, city architects, geo scientists and the Knowledge Point School.