Delay Points cause Entities to pause in a specified fashion, for a specified interval of time (defined by Delay Profiles). When they have individually satisfied the conditions of the Delay, Entities are targeted to another object as part of their journey.

Delay Points differ from Waiting Zones in the following ways:

• A Delay Point is associated with one or more Delay Profiles, whereas a Waiting Zone induces an indefinite delay which is typically interrupted by an Event Profile linked to a superimposed Direction Modifier.
• A Delay Point gives waiting Entities instructions individually, according to their Delay Profile, whereas a Waiting Zone instructs Entities collectively.

Delay Points have an area, a Focal Segment and you may also place Dispersal Points.

You should use Delay Points when an individual Entity’s delay leads to a change in destination, for example when a person stops at an information point in a retail centre to find out the location of a particular store, or pauses to eat food beside a kiosk before returning to a stadium seat.

You can also use Delay Points anywhere that Entities are likely to stop for a particular time, until a particular time (one event only), or according to a distribution.

Delay Points are also used in combination with Queues to represent service points where a person eventually receives the service they were queuing for.

A note on "Use Target Availability" in connection with Delay Points

The 'Links' tab of Spatial Objects contains a parameter called 'Use Target Availability'. Its main function is to direct Entities to consider or disregard the availability of target objects that comprise part of their route (see Linking methods for a recap).

When 'Use Target Availability' is checked with respect to Delay Points, Entities perceiving that a Delay Point is unavailable (due to it having no capacity or because an Availability Profile has changed its status to 'OFF') will wait within their origin object before proceeding to the Delay Point. However, they will only wait if they are being targeted from one of these four objects: Entrance, Populated Zone, Focal Node or another Delay Point. From any other objects, they will approach the Delay Point target and disperse close to it.

When 'Use Target Availability' is unchecked, Entities will disregard availability and approach the target objects anyway.