The length of the visit

ONE of the aspects that makes comparisons [in visitor numbers] harder is the length of the visit, suggests Mike Todd.

If a boater makes a one week trip, does that count as a single visit (or even seven)? How can that be compared with a walker that perhaps stays on the footpath for a few minutes whilst en route to an off-canal destination?

Political pressure

Perhaps part of the problem is that, politically, there is pressure to produce numbers regardless of how robust they are for comparison purposes.  Anything remotely meaningful is likely to be much more expensive to produce.

Yet the comparative numbers do seem to have been used to rank the relative merits of the needs of different types of user.

More robust approach

To me the more robust approach would be, firstly, to have a consistent survey sample taken at specific locations across the same time frame so that differences in measurement techniques (which currently exist between user types) can be allowed for and secondly, that we use something like 'visitor-hours' as the unit for comparison so that people who use the canal for 24 hours a day are given a greater weighting than those who fly past.

But then, does anyone actually want 'proper' figures or just box-ticking numbers that fool the non-numerate politicians and civil servants?