People Counters for National Trails 2015/16

Tender description

Work is well underway on the England Coast Path - a new 2,700 mile National Trail around England’s entire coast. For the first time people will have the right of access around our entire open coast. This includes – where appropriate – any land, other than the trail itself, which forms part of the coastal margin and which has public rights of access along the way. This is known as ‘spreading room’. See the coastal access scheme for more information about the process to establish the England Coast Path. The government is putting additional funding in place over the next 5 years, to make sure that the England Coast Path is completed by 2020. This will significantly speed up the programme of work so that: • people will be able to walk around and enjoy the entire coastline of England much sooner • benefits to local communities and economic opportunities that will arise will be realised more quickly Natural England has established a network of automated visitor counters on its current National Trails, which help it to quantify the social and economic benefits delivered. It wishes to increase this network on the England Coast Path to establish both base line and ongoing data for usage. 2.0 Requirement It is currently our intention to purchase a number of people counter sensors however we may also consider alternative solutions to our requirements whereby Natural England do not purchase outright the sensors, but they are provided to us as part of a service offering from a Supplier. This service offering would need to encapsulate all our requirements listed below. If you are able to meet our requirements as part of a managed service offering then please make this clear in your tender. 2.1 Sensors 2.1.1 Natural England currently has 16 people counter sensors in operation on our National Trails. These are “Eco Combo intelligent loggers and battery with GSM, downloading” with an “Eco Visio” online software package that • Collects Data • Manages Counting Site