Nothing needs to be installed on any cellular phone. The ability to interrogate the built-in circuitry and the embedded ESN is integral to all cellular phones around the globe.
Conversely, the credencial RFID chip has limitations. Not all pilgrims heading to Santiago have one. We assume this is the case, but I think not. A number of pilgrims are just out for the experience. The credencial is only needed if you want to stay at an albergue. They not required for commercial lodging.
Several years ago, I floated the idea of affixing a tamper-proof silicone waist band, with the RFID chip at designated locations where one would start their Camino. That chip could be read passively as a pilgrim walked by a sensor..
I have now realized that there are as many logistical problems with the tamper-proof wristband, as there are with the RFID chip credencial. I no longer support the tamper-proof wrist band.
I still believe that simply leveraging the technology that is ubiquitous and reliable is closer to the optimal solution.
If folks want to rely on other, more “squishy” population estimates, that’s fine by me. I am just trying to move the ball down the pitch…
In any event, knowing how many pilgrims are coming is a net good thing.
Hope this helps the dialogue,
Tom
Thank you for your idea... but I am afraid it is completely out of the scope of this exercise.
There are so many variables and lack of a complete vision of the Camino as a whole that it is very difficult to propose this type of solution. To begin with, talking to the telephone companies to access data from the antennas is simply impossible... and we would have to know who is a pilgrim and who is not so a central register of "pilgrims en route" would also be needed with all the privacy issues that would arise.
But the Camino is also fragmented in Regions and even in provinces that barely share data beyond some strategic plan paid for by Europe that never comes to anything.
And if we focus on the register of overnight stays associated with the Compostela, things do not improve, as there is no central register in which data is aggregated. In many cases, the registers are still on paper....
In addition, as has already been mentioned in the thread, the casuistry of pilgrims is infinite: those who do it complete, those who do stages, those who stay in public hostels, those who stay in private, those who stay in the homes of acquaintances and friends, ... it's a mess. Almost the only thing that identifies them ends up being the Compostela.
It is an exciting topic but I'm afraid that I have long since given up on having more or less curated and coherent data. Some time ago, a collaborator of the hostels of Saint Jean told me that for some time they had been identifying that their numbers of pilgrims who started there did not coincide with those who arrived, even including the jumps of years...
Whether we like it or not, the most complete source of data is the Pilgrim's Office at the Cathedral and it also does not include those who finish and do not ask for the certificate (like me sometimes).
Maybe estimations can also be made of the average duration of a Camino to look for weather data on those dates to see if there is an influence but for now I will keep it simple to see if the prediction models make sense or not.
So far, I'm working with this features with date = day
RangeIndex: 7809 entries, 0 to 7808 (days)
total_pilgrims_daily
top_camino_XX_camino, top_pilgrims_XX_camino (01 to 10)
top_origin_XX_origin, top_pilgrims_XX_origin (01 to 10)
top_country_XX_country, top_pilgrims_XX_country (01 to 10)
top_age_XX, top_pilgrims_age_XX (01 to 04)
day_of_week, week_of_year, month, year
weekly_cumulative_pilgrims, monthly_cumulative_pilgrims, yearly_cumulative_pilgrims
ma_1_days, ma_3_days, ma_5_days, ma_7_days, ma_14_days, ma_21_days (mean average)
Is_Holiday, is_easter, is_christmas, is_virgen_august_weeks, is_constitution_weeks, is_jacobean_years, is_COVID
Let see the results... for now I have it automated to collect the data and add the features as I have time for analysis.
Buen Camino... and thanks again!