— BULLETIN.18
FIELD DISPATCH
Chỉ dẫn đa tầng trong trung tâm thương mại: Bài toán phức tạp, giải pháp thông minh
Khám phá cách bản đồ số giải quyết thách thức dẫn đường xuyên tầng trong các TTTM hiện đại với hàng trăm cửa hàng.
Khám phá cách bản đồ số giải quyết thách thức dẫn đường xuyên tầng trong các TTTM hiện đại với hàng trăm cửa hàng.
A shopper parks on basement level B2 and needs to reach the cinema on floor 6. The nearest escalator only goes to floor 4. Where are the elevators? Which direction after floor 4? Each unanswered question compounds the frustration — and every minute spent wandering is a shopping opportunity that does not convert.
Single-floor navigation is already a challenge. In a multi-level , the problem multiplies with every floor — not just adds. The reason: each floor transition strips visitors of their spatial reference. The entrance they entered from is now useless as a reference point. Every floor has a different layout. And the spot where they step off an elevator is never in the same direction as their destination on that floor.
A six-story mall with 200 stores, 4 elevators, 12 escalators, and 3 separate entrances creates a space where even frequent visitors lose their bearings. For first-time visitors — especially international tourists — getting lost is nearly guaranteed without a reliable navigation tool.
Getting from floor 1 to floor 5 can be done by escalator (fast, requires standing), elevator (convenient but often backed up at peak hours), or stairs (fastest if you know where they are). Static signage cannot compute a route based on the visitor's current position, real-time elevator status, and the specific destination. Most signs just say "elevator — this way" without communicating whether that is actually the best choice.
Research on retail visitor behavior shows that most shoppers pause for 5–10 seconds in front of elevator doors after stepping onto a new floor, reorienting themselves. Without a digital map showing the correct direction from their current position, they frequently walk the wrong way — toward a secondary exit instead of their target.
Getting from point A to point B in a large mall often involves 3–5 different routes. They are not equal: one may be shorter in distance but require a 3-minute elevator wait; another is longer but unobstructed. Static signage cannot convey this trade-off — only a dynamic routing system can.
A mid-sized mall typically sees 10–20% of stores change location or close each year. Printed directory boards become outdated the moment the first store moves. A visitor arrives at the correct floor and room number shown on the sign — and finds a different store. The frustration does not come from a bad mall; it comes from bad information.
A digital indoor map system is designed to handle exactly these challenges. Not by replacing physical signs — but by providing a dynamic, interactive data layer that updates in real time on every device a visitor already has in hand.
Instead of reading signage across multiple floors, a visitor types the store name — the system computes the shortest cross-floor route and shows the next step: "Take the escalator near Gate A to floor 3, then turn left." This guidance is not static — it adapts to the visitor's current position if the system is integrated with indoor positioning technology.
Integration with indoor positioning technology such as BLE beacons lets the system know which floor and zone the visitor is on — and recalculates the route if they take a wrong turn or stop midway. Accuracy of 1–3 meters is sufficient to distinguish "you are standing in front of store X" from "you are standing in the hallway between stores on floor 3".
A flat per-floor 2D map solves the location problem but not the orientation problem. Looking at a flat map, visitors still need to mentally rotate it and match it to their surroundings. A 3D model lets visitors see the building from an angled perspective, recognize architectural landmarks (characteristic columns, anchor store facades, atrium) and orient from those — similar to using Google Maps 3D view instead of a flat plan.
When a store relocates, mall staff update the management dashboard — the change appears immediately on all devices. No reprint, no contractor call. The same mechanism handles temporary closures for maintenance (blocking routes that pass through), special events (adding pop-up zones), and seasonal hour changes.
Beyond helping visitors not get lost, a digital map system creates an operational data layer that mall management could not systematically collect before. Real business questions can now be answered with actual numbers:
This data is not a static report generated monthly. It is a continuous information stream that can be viewed by time slot, day of week, or compared before and after a promotional event.
Major malls in Vietnam — especially in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City — receive significant numbers of Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and domestic visitors from provincial cities. Vietnamese-only signage is insufficient. A digital map system handles this by letting visitors switch the interface language in one tap — store names, categories, and turn-by-turn directions all appear in the chosen language.
This is a clear advantage over physical signage — where adding one language means reprinting the entire system. On a digital map, adding a language is a content problem, not a production problem.
Shopping malls are not the only venue with this challenge. Airports — with multiple terminals, boarding gates, and hundreds of duty-free stores — face the same multi-floor wayfinding problem at even higher complexity. Digital map deployments in airports often represent the most demanding technical reference for mall projects because of higher requirements: multiple terminals, multiple languages, passenger flows that shift with each flight schedule.
A digital map project for a shopping mall typically runs 6–12 weeks from site survey to go-live. Four factors determine most of that timeline:
The figures below are typical ranges from deployments across Southeast and East Asia. Actual results depend on scale, data quality, and visitor adoption — not guarantees.
More important than any individual metric: after 12 months of operation, mall management has a real behavioral dataset to drive layout, tenancy, and marketing decisions — instead of relying on intuition or manual surveys.
If you manage a shopping mall and recognize these challenges, the most practical first step is to see how the system works in a real deployment. You can request a demo of Digimap's indoor map to see how cross-floor navigation works on an actual device. Once you have a clear picture of your needs, contact us — the Digimap team will run a site assessment and recommend an architecture that fits your scale and budget.