Using Energy Metering Data to Support Official Statistics: A Feasibility Study Final Report to the Office for National Statistics

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is the UK’s largest independent producer of official statistics and is the recognised national statistical institute for the UK. It is responsible for collecting and publishing statistics related to the economy, population and society at national, regional and local levels. It also conducts the census in England and Wales every ten years. ONS also plays a leading role in national and international good practice in the production of official statistics. To maintain and further its expertise, the ONS conducts and commissions research covering key topics relating to official statistics and encompassing key emerging conditions. One emerging change relates to the new data sources becoming available through the growth of technologies such as the Internet. These data sources might have a role in official statistics in a number of ways such as helping to validate or improve official estimates, providing more timely information on trends or reducing costs and response burden through the diminishing need to collect data through normal survey processes. One new data source of interest to statistical organisations around the world is the high frequency electricity data recorded by domestic smart meters. Such data may help with understanding energy use and expenditure as well as various features such as occupancy status or household size which may be inferred from the profile of energy use over time. All constituent countries of the UK have programs to roll out smart meters to domestic dwellings by 2020, so that information on an almost universal coverage of dwellings may be available from this date. Energy trials using smart-type meter devices have led to the availability of data on smaller numbers of dwellings for current research and ONS has commissioned the University of Southampton to use some of these trial datasets to test the feasibility of using this data to identify features of households which may have relevance for official statistics. Specifically, this research focuses on the potential of using smart-type meter data to identify household characteristics such as the presence of retired occupants. A second objective is the development of a method to determine occupancy status. It must be emphasised that the principal interest for ONS is the development of methods to derive estimates for groups of households so as to monitor broad trends whilst ensuring no disclosure of personal information. As a first step towards this aim, it is necessary to conduct research at the individual household level as within this paper. ONS recognises that smart meter data poses major questions around ethics, privacy and the safeguarding of personal information. ONS has already sought advice from privacy groups on this research and been given approval so as to demonstrate more fully the benefits of using this data. Future use of this data in a production setting will involve extensive engagement with all stakeholders to ensure that the appropriate levels of security are in place to satisfy the strict controls demanded under the code of practice for official statistics (UK Statistics Authority 2009). The University of Southampton is continuing this research under an ESRC funded project (http://www.energy.soton.ac.uk/category/research/energy-behaviour/census-2022/). Additionally, ONS is conducting internal research using smart-type meter data through its Big Data project and regular updates are published at http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guidemethod/development-programmes/the-ons-big-data-project/index.htm

Identifying seasonal variations in store‐level visitor grocery demand

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand the contribution of visitor demand to the seasonal sales variations experienced at grocery retailers in Cornwall, South West England. Design/methodology/approach: Working collaboratively with a major UK retailer provides access to store trading information and customer data from a popular loyalty card scheme. The authors use spatial analysis to identify revenue originating from outside the store catchment, and explore the spatial and temporal nature of the visitor demand recorded in‐store. Findings: The paper demonstrates the significant degree of seasonality experienced around stores in terms of their revenue generated from out‐of‐catchment visitors, and highlights implications for store location planning. Most notably, visitor expenditure tends to demonstrate far more spatial and temporal clustering than residential demand. The authors argue that it is essential for retailers to ensure that their location planning makes full use of all available consumer data to understand the local nature of demand, including the impact of visitor expenditure. Research limitations/implications: The authors aim to use this insight to develop a spatial decision support system (SDSS) for use within site location planning in the retail sector. This would incorporate a spatial interaction model to estimate and account for variation in local demand generated by seasonal tourist visits. Originality/value: Customer level loyalty card data are rarely available for academic investigations and the authors are able to provide a unique insight into customer expenditure in tourist locations. There has been little exploration of seasonal tourist demand in store location planning, and this study addresses an identified academic and commercial need

Exploring small area demand for grocery retailers in tourist areas

This paper uses data from a major loyalty card scheme to draw insights about the characteristics of grocery expenditure by tourists. The authors explore the volume, value and composition of storebased visitor expenditure using consumer data from the loyalty card scheme. They focus on grocery spending at selected stores in Cornwall, a popular tourist destination in South West England. The loyalty card data provide a valuable source rarely available for academic investigations. The authors are able to analyse visitor spend by socio-economic and geodemographic characteristics, drawing a range of comparisons with residential demand from within the store catchment areas. They demonstrate that visitor grocery expenditure is complex and varies by store, destination and type of customer. The paper presents evidence to suggest that the current approaches used to estimate sales uplift and local-level economic impact from visitor demand are unable to account for the complexities of this form of expenditure. Based on these insights, the authors recommend that sophisticated modelling is employed to estimate the impact of visitor expenditure

THE LANDSCAPE: A GOOD OF CULTURE, IDENTIFICATION AND RICHNESS

The adoption of a systematic in geography has helped to "revolutionize" and in the same time to complete the notion of landscape that, until the half '900, has mastered the international geographic research. We are passed from definitions of the landscape like complex of the sensible features of a region of landscape like theatre etc. to that of landscape as structured system, where the natural and anthropic component are melt in a system which complexity is given by the inextricability of their relations as seen in a historical perspective. Already L. Gambi, however, in 1964 had adopted a first interpretative approach to the complexity of the landscape, looking no more at the man in the nature, according to Biasutti's point of view, but putting the "man in history" near the nature who, exploiting his kind of life contributes at the constitution of the "Anthropogeographic landscape". The centrality of the history in the processes of complexification of the landscape has been put, most recently, in evidence by Paola Sereno (2001): the landscape is composed of elements that belong to the various processes of territorialization, then at more territorial systems that the history produces, transmit some components that, changing even meaning and function, are reunited in a new system, establish new connections with other elements inside of new processes of territorialization. Not exist however a true "past" of the landscape if not in the whole of the continuous morphogenetic processes that had characterized it. In this perspective the landscape's tutelage not is immediately connected at the tutelage of a cultural, architectonic or monumental good that would be, because the same landscape configure itself as the historical - geographical context that the single object inside it get meaning; a context complex, however, because not only the simple union of elements, but the architecture of the nexus that tie them. The landscape configure itself as a whole of signs imprinted by the community to the own territory; it become then expression of belonging that consents to the men of recognize and identify themselves in the "places". Every landscape then has strong individualizing characters that consent the emersion of the deep roots of the realities that constitute the identity of the human groups that in time have established themselves in the territory. (Mautone, 1999). It is uncovered then an ambivalence that, according to M.C. Zerbi (1999) constitute the very essence of the complexity of the notion of landscape: from a side the landscape as visible, external, objective reality, that the observer can see, on the other side the mental image that the observer build for himself, the subjective dimension that is more strictly connect to the notion of cultural landscape. In particular Zerbi see how in the contemporary geographic research, the notion of landscape is seen in three different aspects that presuppose various uses. The first aspect concern The notion of cultural landscape, to whom geography has dedicate much time, as landscape modified by human work. Is derived a large meaning of this term, because the human work -directly or indirectly- manifests itself in a great number of landscapes. Is, however, according Zerbi, a good starting point to pick the past and present dynamics through an approach at the same time ecologic and historical - geographical. When then some elements of the cultural landscape stand out which are particularly appraised or are perceived as menaced in their own existence, it comes out the concept of landscape as patrimonial heritage. Is a more selective concept than previous, which concerns a reality full of values: archaeological sites, traditional agrarian cultivations, ancient houses become a heritage to protect and maintain more than to hand down. The historical gardens and parks too find place in this concept, becoming a planning object. There is even, according M.C. Zerbi, a third notion of cultural landscape that, this time, consider the landscape not only a objective reality, but a subjective interpretation of elements held in the ambient to which various human groups attribute different meanings and values. 228 Landscape then as way to see that surrounds us. At first sight it could seem an abstract approach, less responding to reality; is, instead, an approach that has validity even on the operative plane when is needed to know the values of the insiders, to make them aware of the planning of their complex of life

Assessing the impact of seasonal population fluctuation on regional flood risk management

This paper focuses on the integration of population and environmental models to address the effect of seasonally varying populations on exposure to flood risk. A spatiotemporal population modelling tool, Population24/7, has been combined with LISFLOOD-FP inundation model outputs for a study area centred on St Austell, Cornwall, UK. Results indicate seasonal cycles in populations and their exposure to flood hazard which are not accounted for in traditional population datasets or flood hazard analyses and which provide potential enhancements to current practice

Developing and applying a disaggregated retail location model with extended retail demand estimations

The spatial interaction model (SIM) is an important tool for retail location analysis and store revenue estimation, particularly within the grocery sector. However, there are few examples of SIM development within the literature that capture the complexities of consumer behavior or discuss model developments and extensions necessary to produce models which can predict store revenues to a high degree of accuracy. This article reports a new disaggregated model with more sophisticated demand terms which reflect different types of retail consumer (by income or social class), with different shopping behaviors in terms of brand choice. We also incorporate seasonal fluctuations in demand driven by tourism, a major source of non-residential demand, allowing us to calibrate revenue predictions against seasonal sales fluctuations experienced at individual stores. We demonstrate that such disaggregated models need empirical data for calibration purposes, without which model extensions are likely to remain theoretical only. Using data provided by a major grocery retailer, we demonstrate that statistically, spatially, and in terms of revenue estimation, models can be shown to produce extremely good forecasts and predictions concerning store patronage and store revenues, including much more realistic behavior regarding store selection. We also show that it is possible to add a tourist demand layer, which can make considerable forecasting improvements relative to models built only with residential demand

Behavioural ecology of duikers (Cephalophus spp.) in forest and secondary growth, Tai, Cote d'Ivoire

The behavioural ecology of duikers (Cephalophus spp.) was studied in mature forest and mixed secondary vegetation around TaI National Park, Cöte d'Ivoire. The most common species in both vegetation types was C. maxwelli, followed by C. dorsalis, C. ogilbyi, C. niger, C. zebra and C. lentinki in mature forest, and C. niger, C. dorsalis and C. sylvicultor in secondary vegetation. Population surveys were carried out by a number of methods. Transect censuses by night were found most efficient in mature forest, whereas in secondary vegetation, only pellet transect censuses and drives into nets were possible. C. maxwelli populations were estimated at about 63 km2 in mature forest and 79 km2 in secondary vegetation. Duikers were primarily frugivorous, but the proportion of leaves taken increased in the season of fruit scarcity. Fruit abundance in different habitats increased with the age of the vegetation. Six C. maxwelli in mature forest and four in secondary vegetation were radio-collared to determine ranging patterns and social behaviour. They were diurnal and lived in groups of one male with one or two females and young. Home ranges, which were about 5 ha in size in mature forest and 3.6 ha in secondary vegetation, were defended by males, and the boundaries were marked by latrine areas by both sexes. In mixed secondary vegetation, all habitats were used except open fields and bamboo thickets. Implications for conservation and management are discussed. The continued preservation of mature forest and the control of poaching are essential for the survival of the three rarer species (C. -jentinki, C. zebra and C. ogilbyi). The control of poaching must precede any programme of sustainable harvesting of the more abundant species, which could be carried out in secondary vegetation. Duiker farming may be possible if low-cost sources of fencing and forage can be identified

How to ask sensitive questions in conservation: A review of specialized questioning techniques

Tools for social research are critical for developing an understanding of conservation problems and assessing the feasibility of conservation actions. Social surveys are an essential tool frequently applied in conservation to assess both people’s behaviour and to understand its drivers. However, little attention has been given to the weaknesses and strengths of different survey tools. When topics of conservation concern are illegal or otherwise sensitive, data collected using direct questions are likely to be affected by non-response and social desirability biases, reducing their validity. These sources of bias associated with using direct questions on sensitive topics have long been recognised in the social sciences but have been poorly considered in conservation and natural resource management. We reviewed specialized questioning techniques developed in a number of disciplines specifically for investigating sensitive topics. These methods ensure respondent anonymity, increase willingness to answer, and critically, make it impossible to directly link incriminating data to an individual. We describe each method and report their main characteristics, such as data requirements, possible data outputs, availability of evidence that they can be adapted for use in illiterate communities, and summarize their main advantages and disadvantages. Recommendations for their application in conservation are given. We suggest that the conservation toolbox should be expanded by incorporating specialized questioning techniques, developed specifically to increase response accuracy. By considering the limitations of each survey technique, we will ultimately contribute to more effective evaluations of conservation interventions and more robust policy decisions