MikePeregrino
New Member
- Time of past OR future Camino
- October 2014: Via Coloniensis (Germany)
May 2015: Camino Francés
May or September 2016: Camino Francés
Dear pilgrims,
we are two guys that walked the Camino Francés in May 2015. My name is Michael, 50 yrs old and I’m from Cologne, Germany. My Camino buddy and now friend is Marco, 30 yrs old and from Milan, Italy.
We arrived at Astorga six weeks after Denise Thiem disappeared in that area and just one day after the attempt to pull a woman into a car. Luckily she could escape. Now I read about the Austrian pilgrim who vanished around Lourdes.
We were very concerned about these incidents and decided to let the two ladies who walked with us not out of sight until we reached Santiago.
Lot of people say „Do not walk alone, look for company!“. But this can‘t be the solution. In my oppinion it is essential to walk alone at least for some days to let the Camino happen to you. I walked alone for about ten days before I met Marco and the two girls (Ali from Australia and Konny from Korea), and I am very grateful for this time. I was able to recognize myself, work on former problems and plans for the future.
We talked a lot about the safety on the Camino and discussed how it would be possible to improve it without causing a lot of costs. We are of the oppinion that nobody should die by crime or be harmed on a sacred way like the Camino de Santiago. Nobody should even be afraid of it. We think it’s a shame for a UNESCO world heritage.
We know that local authorities have more severe problems than looking after pilgrims. Particularly in times like these with growing numbers of refugees. Maybe criminals will take that into account and loose their inhibition. I don’t know and I don’t want to think about it.
On my return back home I did some research and I found a solution that not only would improve safety but also would give several additional advantages to the pilgrims. And best of it: despite the very low start-up costs our project would finance itself and would also produce some earnings.
Our idea is to set up a monitoring network, run mainly by volunteers located all over the world to provide a 24/7 service. Since we personally know pilgrims from USA, Australia, Korea, Africa, Brazil and Europe it won’t be a problem to hire an appropriate number of volunteers for the program. Of course it would be useful to place at least three people locally on the Camino, e.g. in Saint Jean, León and Santiago in order to supply a sufficient service and to ensure a personal contact to local authorities.
Our project doesn’t stand for surveillance but monitoring, run by people who are convinced of what they do. Our plan is to run this ‚business‘ as a non-profit organization. Every Euro that exceeds the local costs will be invested in improving the Camino (e.g. infrastructure, implementing quality standards regarding hygiene, etc.).
In cooperation with a service provider the members of the network will be able to track in
real-time the movements of every single pilgrim that participates. It would also be possible to retrace the movements up to 90 days in the past. The tracked data will contain the GPS location (or address), speed, altitude and battery status of the mobile phone.
Since 90% or more use their smartphones on the Camino most of the pilgrims would be able to participate if wanted.
The software runs as an app or widget on most mobile systems (iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone), and the tracked data can be monitored on every computer system, tablet or mobile device connected to the internet. The mobile app does nothing else but locating the mobile device and sending small packages of data in a pre-defined interval. Every user is able to locate his own position on a map.
Every tracked pilgrim can be selected and monitored on the same machine by the members of the network. The app, once started on the mobile device, can’t be stopped by someone else because it’s password protected. It has to be stopped on purpose by the user. Even if the phone is shut down, the app will restart itself and continue sending data when the phone is switched on again. Integrated is an SOS button that, once pressed, sends an emergency email to a pre-defined address including the current location and a link that leads directly to the map showing the person in SOS/panic mode in real-time location.
The SOS button could be used not only in potential lethal situations but also if people notice something weird on the Camino, if they got injured or got lost. The emergency email would be read by at least one of our network members and actions would be taken like calling the sender or informing local stuff and/or authorities like police or medical assistance.
You might say that it is already possible to locate mobile phones via GPS or cell triangulation but it takes a vast long and precious time. Locating people with our solution would take only seconds and we’d be able to organize help very short-term or provide authorities with the necessary data when organizing help or rescue.
In addition we could think about some services like handing out a kind of visiting cards which would allow other people to get in contact or ask for the person if they lost the contact. As the owner of a visiting card you’d be allowed to ask the hospitalero/hospitalera to make a contact or just look for the current location of this person. There's no need anymore to place pieces of paper under a pile of stones .
This is just a brief description of what we’d like to do. We think there are lot of more possibilties to make the Camino more safe and comfortable. And may be, if criminals know that pilgrims are monitored the inhibition threshold to do any harm to the people would be higher. The technical environment already exists so why not use it?
The costs for the app itself is about 4,00€. We would sell the package including the app, the monitoring service and visiting cards for 10,00€. In our oppinion this is an appropriate price regarding the service that you get and the duration, in general several weeks. At the end of the Camino the app can be used as a regular GPS tracking app for hiking, biking, etc. just without the monitoring service. Money wouldn’t be lost after the Camino.
Our plan is to walk the Camino Francés once more in 2016 (spring or autumn) to promote the idea and check out the technical feasibility. If things go well we want to start with SaferCamino latest in 2017.
First of all we’d like you to consider this idea and let us know how you would evaluate it. Our secondary aim is letting you know there are some people who love the Camino and its meaning as an UNESCO world heritage. We know there is much space for improvement along that way and we want to contribute to make it better. It‘s definitely not our purpose to get rich but to give something back for what the Camino gave to us. Hence we don’t want any kind of business company to pick up this idea and earn money at the expense of the pilgrims.
Any kind of feedback would be much appreciated.
Thank you and Buen Camino!
Michael
we are two guys that walked the Camino Francés in May 2015. My name is Michael, 50 yrs old and I’m from Cologne, Germany. My Camino buddy and now friend is Marco, 30 yrs old and from Milan, Italy.
We arrived at Astorga six weeks after Denise Thiem disappeared in that area and just one day after the attempt to pull a woman into a car. Luckily she could escape. Now I read about the Austrian pilgrim who vanished around Lourdes.
We were very concerned about these incidents and decided to let the two ladies who walked with us not out of sight until we reached Santiago.
Lot of people say „Do not walk alone, look for company!“. But this can‘t be the solution. In my oppinion it is essential to walk alone at least for some days to let the Camino happen to you. I walked alone for about ten days before I met Marco and the two girls (Ali from Australia and Konny from Korea), and I am very grateful for this time. I was able to recognize myself, work on former problems and plans for the future.
We talked a lot about the safety on the Camino and discussed how it would be possible to improve it without causing a lot of costs. We are of the oppinion that nobody should die by crime or be harmed on a sacred way like the Camino de Santiago. Nobody should even be afraid of it. We think it’s a shame for a UNESCO world heritage.
We know that local authorities have more severe problems than looking after pilgrims. Particularly in times like these with growing numbers of refugees. Maybe criminals will take that into account and loose their inhibition. I don’t know and I don’t want to think about it.
On my return back home I did some research and I found a solution that not only would improve safety but also would give several additional advantages to the pilgrims. And best of it: despite the very low start-up costs our project would finance itself and would also produce some earnings.
Our idea is to set up a monitoring network, run mainly by volunteers located all over the world to provide a 24/7 service. Since we personally know pilgrims from USA, Australia, Korea, Africa, Brazil and Europe it won’t be a problem to hire an appropriate number of volunteers for the program. Of course it would be useful to place at least three people locally on the Camino, e.g. in Saint Jean, León and Santiago in order to supply a sufficient service and to ensure a personal contact to local authorities.
Our project doesn’t stand for surveillance but monitoring, run by people who are convinced of what they do. Our plan is to run this ‚business‘ as a non-profit organization. Every Euro that exceeds the local costs will be invested in improving the Camino (e.g. infrastructure, implementing quality standards regarding hygiene, etc.).
In cooperation with a service provider the members of the network will be able to track in
real-time the movements of every single pilgrim that participates. It would also be possible to retrace the movements up to 90 days in the past. The tracked data will contain the GPS location (or address), speed, altitude and battery status of the mobile phone.
Since 90% or more use their smartphones on the Camino most of the pilgrims would be able to participate if wanted.
The software runs as an app or widget on most mobile systems (iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone), and the tracked data can be monitored on every computer system, tablet or mobile device connected to the internet. The mobile app does nothing else but locating the mobile device and sending small packages of data in a pre-defined interval. Every user is able to locate his own position on a map.
Every tracked pilgrim can be selected and monitored on the same machine by the members of the network. The app, once started on the mobile device, can’t be stopped by someone else because it’s password protected. It has to be stopped on purpose by the user. Even if the phone is shut down, the app will restart itself and continue sending data when the phone is switched on again. Integrated is an SOS button that, once pressed, sends an emergency email to a pre-defined address including the current location and a link that leads directly to the map showing the person in SOS/panic mode in real-time location.
The SOS button could be used not only in potential lethal situations but also if people notice something weird on the Camino, if they got injured or got lost. The emergency email would be read by at least one of our network members and actions would be taken like calling the sender or informing local stuff and/or authorities like police or medical assistance.
You might say that it is already possible to locate mobile phones via GPS or cell triangulation but it takes a vast long and precious time. Locating people with our solution would take only seconds and we’d be able to organize help very short-term or provide authorities with the necessary data when organizing help or rescue.
In addition we could think about some services like handing out a kind of visiting cards which would allow other people to get in contact or ask for the person if they lost the contact. As the owner of a visiting card you’d be allowed to ask the hospitalero/hospitalera to make a contact or just look for the current location of this person. There's no need anymore to place pieces of paper under a pile of stones .
This is just a brief description of what we’d like to do. We think there are lot of more possibilties to make the Camino more safe and comfortable. And may be, if criminals know that pilgrims are monitored the inhibition threshold to do any harm to the people would be higher. The technical environment already exists so why not use it?
The costs for the app itself is about 4,00€. We would sell the package including the app, the monitoring service and visiting cards for 10,00€. In our oppinion this is an appropriate price regarding the service that you get and the duration, in general several weeks. At the end of the Camino the app can be used as a regular GPS tracking app for hiking, biking, etc. just without the monitoring service. Money wouldn’t be lost after the Camino.
Our plan is to walk the Camino Francés once more in 2016 (spring or autumn) to promote the idea and check out the technical feasibility. If things go well we want to start with SaferCamino latest in 2017.
First of all we’d like you to consider this idea and let us know how you would evaluate it. Our secondary aim is letting you know there are some people who love the Camino and its meaning as an UNESCO world heritage. We know there is much space for improvement along that way and we want to contribute to make it better. It‘s definitely not our purpose to get rich but to give something back for what the Camino gave to us. Hence we don’t want any kind of business company to pick up this idea and earn money at the expense of the pilgrims.
Any kind of feedback would be much appreciated.
Thank you and Buen Camino!
Michael
