Indoor wayfinding for airports and malls: what actually works

Airports and malls are the two places people most often get lost indoors, and both have tried everything: signs, directories, kiosks, apps, blue dots. The honest summary from those projects is unglamorous — good signage and an up-to-date map do most of the work; technology helps at the edges, and only if the map behind it is right.

• Walking times matter more than distance. “Gate B32 — 12 minutes” is the most useful sentence in a terminal.
• Changes are constant. Gate changes, closed security lanes, lifts out of service — the map must reflect them the same hour.
• Airside and landside are different worlds. Routes must respect security and border boundaries.
• Accessibility is not optional. Step-free routes and assistance points need to be first-class destinations.

Silverbay Airport Terminal 2 demo

• Units change every month. If the tenant data is not tied to the map, the map is wrong within a season.
• Many entrances, many car parks. “Where did I park?” is as common a question as “where is the shop?”.
• Multi-floor is the norm. Directions that stop at the escalator are half an answer.
• Operations need the same map. Security, cleaning and maintenance work on the same floors as shoppers.

GPS does not work reliably indoors, so a blue dot needs its own infrastructure. Typical accuracies below are for good conditions; real buildings vary.

1. 1
   Map the building properly

   Every floor, door, lift and escalator at real-world scale, with names that match your tenant and asset data.

2. 2
   Own the updates

   Decide who changes the map when a unit, gate or lift changes — ideally operations, in a browser, the same day.

3. 3
   Start with links, not apps

   A web map from a QR code on signs reaches everyone; an app reaches only frequent visitors.

4. 4
   Give staff the same map

   Control rooms, security and cleaning teams are daily users and the best testers.

5. 5
   Add positioning where it pays

   Large terminals and complex malls; budget for maintenance, not just installation.

Spatial Map is the map layer. Its viewer and share links include a Navigate button: walking directions on one floor, routed around walls and through doors, with no route drawing — see the indoor navigation system and the turn-by-turn directions guide. Lifts and escalators can be marked out of service so staff see them greyed out.

Multi-floor routes, step-free profiles and blue-dot positioning in your own app or kiosk are built on the same map as a custom development project, with positioning hardware from our hardware page. For the building itself, see airport indoor mapping and shopping mall indoor mapping.