Walking is part of almost every journey, no matter which mode of transport is used. The main objective of the PERRON project is to improve pedestrian navigation by bringing it to a more detailed and realistic level. In general, today pedestrians are routed and navigated based on road networks. It is time for a fundamental change of view: for pedestrians, roads are not ways but barriers. Pedestrians should be routed and navigated on pavements wherever possible. The following issues raised by this fundamental change will be addressed by the PERRON project: (a) the scientific model developed within the European research project COST-358 Pedestrian Quality Needs will be implemented for route search depending on the quality of the footways, (b) crossing the road away from dedicated crosswalks like zebra crossings and signal controlled crossings will be considered while route finding and (c) existing methods of pedestrian navigation will be extended and adapted in order to meet the requirements of road crossing and quality of pedestrian ways.
