In order to investigate what place WiFi fingerprinting has in pedestrian-oriented planning, an interview study was carried out by conducting 12 semi-structured interviews with different actors working in pedestrian-related fields. The actors represent both the private and the public sector, and work in various geographical scales. The interviews investigate what pedestrian-related questions actors work with, what data their work requires and what methods they use to gather the data. For each of these three categories, topics that appeared in over half of the interviews were analyzed qualitatively. With this analysis, relevant applications of WiFi fingerprinting in pedestrian-oriented planning today are identified, namely determining capacity and dimensions, determining the spatial layout of small-scale environments, measuring congestion and providing validation data. The data needs not filled by WiFi fingerprinting are found to be spot-specific information suitable for qualitative analysis, visitor composition and network level flows and movements. Lastly, WiFi fingerprinting can be combined with other data sources to complement its drawbacks as a piece in a puzzle, such as using spot visits to better understand the reasons behind the flow data.

Le développement des systèmes de communication et de localisation et les progrès des dispositifs mobiles rendent possible la mise en œuvre de nouvelles applications et services, permettant l'accès à des informations temps réel et l'amélioration de l'intégration des personnes aveugles. Dans ce contexte, la thèse a contribué au développement d'un système d'information et de guidage destiné aux personnes aveugles dans les transports en commun. La thèse a porté sur deux aspects critiques de ce type de systèmes: la fiabilité de la transmission de données et la capacité à localiser et à guider l'utilisateur de manière robuste. Elle a d'autre part développé un environnement de simulation pour le prototypage et l'analyse du fonctionnement de l'application nomade ainsi que l'étude des aspects réseaux de communication mobile. Les travaux se sont appuyés sur les acquis des projets RAMPE et INFOMOVILLE / The development of communication and locating systems and the progress of mobile devices have made possible new applications and services, allowing access to real-time information and improving the integration of blind people. ln this context, the thesis has contributed to the development of an information and guidance system to be used by blind travellers in public transports. The work has focused on two critical aspects for this kind of systems: the reliability of data transmission and the ability of localizing and guiding the user in an efficient way. A simulation environment has also been developed that can be used for the prototyping and the analysis of the mobile application as well as for the study of communication over the wireless network. The thesis is based on the results of the RAMPE and INFOMOVILLE projects