Challenge 8: How do we better plan, manage and respond to the experiences of visitors and communities at visitor hotspots in rural and remote locations?

Challenge summary

The pandemic of the past year has disrupted much of life, including how people spend their leisure time. Restrictions on travel – especially internationally – have encouraged ‘staycation’ in the UK, and it is likely that these restrictions will remain in place for some time, including tourist seasons.

The resulting upsurge in local visits, especially for remote and rural communities, can offer advantages as it brings much needed revenue, and can help rebuild the local economy. But this change in people’s patterns of behaviour also puts real pressure on rural beauty spots. There have been many well-publicised incidents across the UK of the downside: ‘dirty camping’, uncontrolled campfires, BBQs left to smoulder, motorhomes accessing remote sites, anti-social behaviour, excessive noise, and littering are unfortunately common.

Like many parts of Scotland, Perth & Kinross, Stirling and the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park have experienced these problems, especially in rural and remote but still accessible locations. They are just some of the issues Ranger staff must deal with on a daily basis.

So how can we respond to this? How can we better plan, manage and respond to the experiences of both people coming to ‘visitor hotspots’ in rural and remote locations, and the communities in the area, delivering all the advantages of the ‘tourism boom’, but minimising the downsides?

CENSIS and CivTech have formed a partnership to support the development of sensing, imaging and Internet of Things technologies to address public sector challenges. In addition to working with public sector organisations and CivTech to define challenges, CENSIS may also support companies selected by CivTech to address a challenge, including providing access to its in-house facilities and expertise.

Key information for applicants

Please note: you must apply for this Challenge via Public Contracts Scotland

Launch date
Monday 14 June 2021

Closing date
Midday, Friday 9 July 2021

Exploration Stage interviews
3 August 2021

Exploration Stage
23 August – 10 September 2021

Accelerator interviews
15 September 2021

Accelerator Stage
4 October 2021 – 28 January 2022

Q&A session

A live Q&A session was held with the Challenge Sponsor team on 24 June 2021 at 15:00. The recording can be viewed here:

Why does this Challenge need to be solved?

The potential benefits of tourism remain huge to local economy and the Council is always promoting responsible and sustainable tourism. However, irresponsible tourism has grown during the pandemic and impacts negatively on areas and local communities. Throughout 2020, in Scotland, some local infrastructure at “visitor hotspots” is not able to cope and can be overwhelmed. For example, Loch Rannoch, Loch Tummel Foss Road, Loch Tay, and Kenmore: Glen Lyon, Braes of Foss/Schiehallion, Loch Earn/St Fillans, Clunie Loch, Dunkeld, Loch Lomond, The Trossachs, Arrochar, Callander, Loch Earn.

How will we know the Challenge has been solved?

Success is creating places where visitors are welcomed and both they and the residents have a positive experience. The challenge sponsors are looking for help on how to manage visitors to these remote rural locations and how to deploy limited resources between a number of agencies to do this effectively. This will include;

Anticipating demand and planning for future visitor numbers,
Reacting to sudden increases in visitor numbers,
Reacting to situations such as parking problems, camping, litter, fires, anti-social behaviour
Monitoring trends and the impact of interventions to support investment planning

Key measures of success will include;

Number of Visitors to particular sites is contained within the capacity of the local infrastructure (car parks, toilets, public space, litter bins available etc.)
Visitors feeling safe and welcome and have a good experience of their visit
Anti-social behaviour is absent and all visitors leave only footprints
No litter, used BBQs, tents and human waste left at sites, all litter disposed of in correct places
Residents and the local community are kept informed and feel that visitor management is effective and visitor behaviour doesn’t impact negatively on community
Data set is generated showing numbers of visitors to particular sites at various times and impact of visitor management on numbers
Evidence base built to support future funding applications to maintain and develop infrastructure and investment in visitor economy
Increase feeling of safety by staff and volunteers when monitoring and managing sites and people
Measurement of behaviour change by visitors to all and specific sites

Who are the end users of the solution likely to be? title

Visitors

Local residents and community groups
Local businesses
Council staff and Volunteers
National Park staff and volunteers

With involvement of other public services and multi-agency working including but not limited to:

Police Scotland
Scottish Fire and Rescue Service
Forestry and Land Scotland
National Trust for Scotland
John Muir Trust
Transport Scotland

Has the Challenge Sponsor attempted to solve this problem before?

The Council has recognised the problem and has invested additional resources into visitor management (for instance Visitor Management Wardens are being deployed) and multi-agency working.

However, there has been little additional allocation into technology (IoT, mobile phones, Automatic Number Plate Recognition, CCTV etc) to assist in the activity.

Are there any interdependencies or blockers?

The efficiency and effectiveness of the use of existing resources should be an important consideration of any solution and we wish to share information about existing deployment, patrols and capabilities for this purpose.

The sensitivity of some of the deployments to tackle this problem e.g. from Police Scotland will need to be navigated.

The ability to increase staff or resources or to deploy the staff resource differently to manage and enforce legislation and behaviours is something that will need to be considered.

Mobile phone and internet connections are often poor in rural and remote areas (this may change in specific locations overtime with new connections being established) but improvements to mobile phone coverage are being planned in Highland Perthshire.

The experience of implementing a solution in one location often means that visitors move to (and then overwhelm) another location so the spillover and boundary issues need to be considered.

Patrols to many of the hot spot locations typically take place on Friday, Saturday, Sunday on a weekly basis. This is coordinated with other services for example the fire service and police.

Are there any technologies that the Challenge Sponsor wishes to explore or avoid?

Local Authority and National Park staff do use mobile devices, typically smart phones (and radios?) so this will be the principle tool (provided there is mobile phone coverage) to communicate data back and forth to staff and for communication between staff from different agencies on the ground

There are a variety of other technologies that can be considered:

Sensors for footfall and vehicles either operating off mobile network or LoRaWAN
ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) this is used in some PKC car parks and recycling centres but not generally deployed In rural areas
CCTV – deployed across some of the building estates. Mobile CCTV can also be used (housed in vans)
Mobile phone network data – by arrangement with Mobile Network Operators e.g. Vodaphone mobile phone data can be accessed from ‘pings’ from mobile phone masts to locate certain users or to compile a picture of travel and destinations
Traffic Sensor data from traffic management systems
Public transport data
Existing Internet of Things technologies deployed to monitor the capacity of car parks

What is the commercial opportunity beyond a CivTech contract?

The problems we experience are shared amongst many other areas of Scotland, the UK as well as overseas where visitors are able to access remote and beautiful sites largely by car but where there may be little visitor infrastructure and where there are resident populations however small and remote that may be impacted.

Who are the stakeholders?

The public sector organisations that are responsible for “visitor hotspot” locations, with primary responsibilities fulfilled by local authorities of Stirling Council and Perth and Kinross Council as well as Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park. This includes other public sector, community and destination management organisations.

CENSIS

The Digital Office for Local Government, who are funded by local government to provide leadership for digital transformation in local government across Scotland who will provide technical advice alongside CENSIS to the Challenge sponsor team, and help to disseminate the learning across Local Government.

Who’s in the Challenge Sponsor team?

Perth and Kinross Council

Arek Nowrotek, Visitor Management Coordinator
Graham Pinfield Smart Perth Project Coordinator
Suzanne Cumiskey – Project Officer (Tourism)
Roddy Ross – Team Leader Safer Communities
Andy Clegg – Community Greenspace Team Leader

Stirling Council

Shaun Marley, Broadband Manager
Jonathan McDougall, Data Architect

Digital Office for Local Government

Colin Birchenall, Chief technology Officer
Kyle Graham, Project Officer

Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park

Matt Buckland, Visitor Operations Manager

CENSIS

Rachael Wakefield, Business Development Manager

Scottish Government

Paul Rhodes, Head of Rural Economy, Agriculture and Rural Economy Directorate

Will a solution need to integrate with any existing systems or equipment?

Interoperability with existing systems and operating processes across the challenge sponsors will be a critical success factor. Open access to information via APIs and data feeds will be required to integrate with operational systems.

Specific systems that are likely to require integration include;

Geographical Information Systems (typically ESRI ArcGIS)
Data Analytics tools such as Power BI

Usability and the ability to embed solutions within existing work practices will also be a key success factor for any new solution

What is the policy background to the Challenge?

Perth and Kinross Visitor Management Group initiative summarised in 5 March 2021 SMT report - Perth & Kinross Visitor Management in Rural Areas – Update and Preparations for 2021 Tourist Season.

Resources allocated to develop infrastructure to meet the needs of visitors incl. Visitor Management Coordinator post for 2 years.

Joint Response Visitor Management plan all information can be found at https://www.lochlomond-trossachs.org/park-authority/covid-19-coronavirus-information-communities/