Associations of Street-Level Advertising and Visual-Interface Features with Pedestrian Dwell Behavior in a Historic Commercial Street: Evidence from Guangzhou

In Guangzhou’s Shangxiajiu Pedestrian Street, street segments with higher billboard densities exhibited greater proportions of both brief stops and extended dwell, while segments with higher densities of illuminated signage at night also showed greater proportions of extended dwell. Higher street width-to-height ratios and greater ground-floor façade transparency were associated with increased afternoon pedestrian activity and brief stopping, respectively. Using 13 street segments as the units of analysis, this study combined on-site measurements, synchronized behavioral observations, and correlation analysis to examine the associations of billboard density, illuminated signage density, street width-to-height ratio, and façade transparency with brief stopping, extended dwell, and through-movement behavior. The results showed that billboard density was strongly and positively correlated with both the mean proportion of brief stops and the mean proportion of extended dwell (r = 0.749, p = 0.003; r = 0.832, p < 0.001). Illuminated signage density was also strongly and positively correlated with the proportion of extended dwell at night (r = 0.823, p = 0.001). Street width-to-height ratio was positively correlated with both the afternoon proportion of brief stops and the afternoon proportion of total pedestrian activity, while façade transparency was positively correlated with the afternoon and mean proportions of brief stops. These findings indicate that, in the case of Shangxiajiu Pedestrian Street, pedestrian dwell was more concentrated in street segments characterized by richer commercial information, greater nighttime visibility, more open spatial configurations, or more legible storefront interfaces. The findings provide field-based quantitative evidence to inform signage layout, ground-floor interface optimization, the coordination of street enclosure, and the management of nighttime visual environments in historic commercial streets.