Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
values dominates. By contrast the northern part of the Coast demonstrates palpably
higher variation in the level of data completeness, with extreme proportional
values appearing north of Greymouth and more stops further north with missing
arrival times or durations in the survey data.
The pattern of gaps in the data differs from the pattern of notable errors. The
map on the right in Fig.
5
summarises the proportion of suspect recorded events at
stops. The suspect events are identified by comparing the recorded arrival times
with the GIS calculated values. It can be seen that the majority of stops have less
than ten percent suspect arrival times recorded in the survey data. These suspect
times are either earlier or later than GIS estimates of arrival times. The stops in the
northern part of West Coast have more accurate recorded arrival times
than the stops in the southern part. Such variations along the Coast may be due to
the distinct patterns and compositions of tourist flows identified in the WCTFS
study (Forer and Simmons
2011
), particularly the greater presence of domestic
tourists on shorter tours following more limited circuits focussed on Arthur's and
Lewis Passes.
In some cases the levels of missing events or suspect recorded values are related
to the nature of the stops, with Murchison, Arthur's Pass and Springs Junction have
a noticeable proportion of missing temporal events, but the recorded arrival times
are accurate. This may indicate their unique location at the border of the Coast and
the distraction of entering or leaving this leg of their holiday. Perhaps the events at
these stops were easier to forget or engaged less with people's memories. Most
tourists arrived at these stops for food or rest, filling petrol or just as a transition.
The events are simply less vivid and in the hurry to find their main destinations,
stops are few. Generally, overnight stops also elicit specific behaviour and explain
the reason for proportionally more stops with missing temporal records, since the
ambiguity of arrival and departure and the distractions of multiple attractions may
lead to oversight or some confusion.
Spatial pattern of data quality reveals some insights. Further insights can be
gained by considering the direction of travel. The travel directions were identified
from the overnight trips with multiple stops, specifically, the travel directions refer
to the overall day's trip directions. The West Coast is a long narrow area and
movement can be easily categorised as having a southerly or northerly direction.
There is some imbalance in North and South flows, accompanied by the belief that
northward travellers are more focused on returning home and be distracted in a
number of ways and may stop less. Psychologically closer to the end of their
holiday direction may have impact on people recalling their spatiotemporal events
of itineraries during the survey. There are slightly fewer stops when travelling
north but more completed records were picked up for consistency checking. The
completeness and consistency assessment were carried out on the stops within the
region and the results are shown in Fig.
6
.
Stops on northward trips have slightly more missing temporal events but pos-
sess slightly more accurate records. The reasons could be that there are more
temporal events at exit portals like Murchison and Arthur's Pass, on the other
hand, there are fewer stops on northern trips but more daily trips, which indicates
