CHAPTER 4 TECHNIQUES FOR COUNTING AND TRACKING THE SPATIO-
4.4 E VALUATION AND COMPARISON OF COUNTING AND TRACKING TECHNIQUES 56
The previous sections reviewed various counting and tracking technologies respectively. This section provides information on which techniques are suitable for collecting particular types of data and evaluating each technique’s capabilities (see table 4.1), the advantages and disadvantages of each technique (see table 4.2) and the type of application best suited for each technique (see table 4.3).
The counting and tracking techniques discussed in section 3.3 have been evaluated according to the variables of movements shown in table 4.1. A positive sign (+) indicates that the counting and tracking technique is capable of collecting the variable. A negative sign (-) indicates that the technique is incapable of collecting the variable. When a particular variable for a technique cannot be categorised as capable or incapable, a zero (0) is used. Table 4.2 summarises the advantages and disadvantages of the counting and tracking techniques discussed in section 3.3. The advantages and disadvantages are allocated to each technique based upon the following significant factors: resolution, cost, intrusive, non-intrusive and sample size. Table 4.3 provides a list of applications and the counting and tracking techniques that are best suited for a given application.
Table 4.1 Summary of capabilities of various counting and tracking technologies (Infodev 2004; Ivanov et al. 2002; Klein 1995)
Note: + means capable; - means incapable;0 means either capable or incapable Camera
weather Fair Fair Fair Fair Excellent Excellent Excellent Fair Poor Poor Fair Fair Fair Fair Status of
Table 4.2 Summary of advantages and disadvantages of various counting and tracking technologies (Infodev 2004; Klein 1995; Skszek 2001)
Technique Advantage Disadvantage
Pressure pads or mats
(People/bicycle counting) Low cost
Non-intrusive
Variety of size suitable for different purpose
Can work with small long-life batteries up to one month
(People /vehicle counting) Non-intrusive
High resolution
Can work as surveillance, counting, and tracking tool
(People /vehicle counting) Non-intrusive
Uninfluenced by sudden temperature and light change
Ease of install covering wide entrance
(People /vehicle counting) Non-intrusive
Low cost
Uninfluenced by sudden temperature and light change
(Vehicle counting) Non-intrusive
High resolution
Mature technology
Ease of install
Good performance in inclement weather
Good performance in inclement weather
Ultrasonic detectors Non-intrusive
High resolution
Mature technology
Ease of install
Good performance in inclement weather
capacity
Mobile phone tracking Non-intrusive
High resolution Low-cost
Privacy security issue
signals blockage from buildings and foliage PDA Tracking High resolution
Can communicate with tourists in real-time
Can track their decision-making process
interview Can communicate with tourists deeply
Can classify vehicles more accurately
Can count or track tourists more flexibly
Intrusive
Time-consuming
Low resolution
Low sample size
Self-administered questionnaire Can acquire non-spatial and approximate spatio-temporal information of tourist
Can count or track tourists more flexibly
Intrusive
Time-consuming
Low resolution
Low sample size Virtual questionnaire Non-Intrusive
Can acquire non-spatial information of tourist
Can acquire approximate spatio-temporal information of tourist
Can track tourists’ decision-making process
Low resolution
Expensive
Table 4.3 Counting and tracking technology applications to tourism management
APPLICATION OBJECTIVES TRACKING
(Chhetri et al. 2004) experiences of natural
Table 4.1, 2 and 3 summarise the capabilities, advantages and disadvantages and applications of both counting and tracking techniques. All the counting techniques mentioned above can count vehicles. However, only camera-based systems, active infrared sensors, passive infrared sensors, pressure pads or mats and observing can be used to count tourists. Furthermore, camera-based systems, active infrared sensors, inductive loop detectors and microwave detectors can count tourists or vehicles at higher resolution compared to the other counting techniques such as observation, passive infrared sensors, pressure pads and magnetic detectors.
Of the eight tacking techniques reviewed in section 3.3, all techniques can be used to track individual tourist movement. Global Positioning Systems, timing systems, and mobile phone tracking techniques can also used to track the movement of vehicles with high resolution. The traditional tracking techniques such as observation, interview and self-administered questionnaires are able to track spatial and temporal information related to the movement of people in low resolution but could obtain a great deal of detailed information. However, modern tracking techniques such as GPS, timing systems, PDA tracking and mobile phone tracking can track not only the spatial and temporal motion information of tourists but also their speed and direction, which could be very useful information for some applications such as movement prediction. One important disadvantage of these modern tracking techniques is that the equipment is usually expensive and has a high risk of being lost.
To sum up, each technique has its own advantage and disadvantage, and it is important to apply them in suitable situations (see table 4.3). Tracking techniques instead of counting techniques are mainly applied to record the location of tourists, corresponding arrival time at the location and tourist demographic information in this thesis. As detailed in the chapter 3, tourist movements can be divided into two levels, the macro and micro levels. The macro level focuses on the movements from one specific location (area) to another. The micro level can be considered as the determination of movements at a specific location (spatial point (x, y)) where tourist movement patterns are localised in geographic extent.
At the macro level, the movement information including location visited, corresponding arrival or departure time, duration of stay, visiting characteristics, and tourist demographic information needs to be collected. In terms of the low resolution requirement at the macro level, observation and interview, the self-administered questionnaire, and the virtual questionnaire could be used to track the movement of tourists. The self-administered questionnaire was used to collect tourist movement information at this level in this thesis (see details in chapter 6) because of immature techniques of the virtual questionnaire and the limitation of sample size of observation and interview.
At the micro level, higher resolution of movement data is required. Movement information such as location, time, direction and speed needs to be collected. The goal of this thesis at the micro level is to record tourist routes and identify their wayfinding decision-making processes. Closed circuit television monitoring (camera based systems), GPS and timing
systems can be used to track tourists at this level. PDA tracking, self-administered questionnaire and interview are able to acquire tourist wayfinding decision-making processes.
In this thesis, GPS is used to track tourist movements. Self-administered questionnaire and interview techniques are adopted to collect the characteristics of tourist, travel behaviours and wayfinding decision information. There are a few reasons why the other tracking techniques were not chosen. Closed circuit television monitoring can track the route of tourists with high resolution. However, it is limited to a room-sized area and is not suitable for using in large areas. Timing systems can count tourists passing the road intersections and record their route choices as well. However, corresponding tourist characteristics data (see details in section 2.2.3) is unable to be tracked by timing systems and the equipment is too expensive to access.
Therefore, these two techniques will not be considered for this research. PDA tracking is especially suitable to track tourist wayfinding decision-making. However, the technique is not mature and PDA equipments are too expensive to be applied. Consequently, it is not realistic to use it for this study. Therefore, GPS, self-administered questionnaire and interview techniques were adopted to track tourist movements at the micro level in this thesis (see details in chapter 6).
4.5 CONCLUSIONS
This chapter compared and reviewed tracking techniques for the spatio-temporal movement of tourists. Each technique has been evaluated based on the capability of the technique and the type of information each technique can collect. Each technique has also been evaluated based on the level of resolution achieved, whether it is an intrusive or non-intrusive technique, the size of sample it can record and its suitability for particular applications.
The next chapter will develop a method of modelling the spatio-temporal movement of tourists at the macro level using MC models. Log-linear models will be adopted to test the significance of spatio-temporal movement patterns of tourists. A data mining method to implement tourism market segmentation based on the significant movement patterns of tourists will then be discussed.