CART RECORD HOLDER?

[Mike Todd]

14 hours ago, mrsmelly said:

It is polite as was my reply but thats not the problem here. The problem is I get contacted advising me that their sightings tell them I have probably overstayed when I had been off my mooring for less than 24 hours and been at this spot less than 24 hours not over 14 days. This is a cock up and shows to me who is very pro CART that their monitoring system is not fit for purpose and could result in mistakes being made. This is in everybodys interest to get sorted out.

In one sense it is clearly in everyone's interests (not least CaRT staff!) to have a system that is fit for purpose. However, such systems do not come for free and it would be helpful to know how many average lock stoppages it would cost. (Note new unit measure of cost = similar to Wales as a unit of area!).

One of the cost factors is that it can often be the case that fixing a broken system is more expensive than creating a new one - hence the throw away society in which we live. It is also the case that the current 'regime' is a tad experimental, as a result of the not-fit-for-today's-purpose legislation that we are all trying to work within. Until there is a bit more certainty and clarity about how far CaRT (and the rest of the canal community) want to go and are able to do within current legislation, devising a new system could end up with a white elephant if the game changes unexpectedly. I am sure that there would be complaints over wasted expenditure . . .

I would, however, be disappointed if, in say three of four year's time, CaRT have not established an IT strategy that includes better integrated data - this is not the only part of CaRT in which the systems seem to be creaking more than they should be. That said, I have seen many web sites that are far worse than CaRT's! At least it is generally up to date. How many canal interest organisations can claim that. I was looking at one only yesterday that had a News section that was at least 18 months out of date!

No-one should under-estimate the cost of good IT systems and should always remember that a good rule of thumb is that it takes as much each year to keep a database up to date as it does to create it in the first place.Too often companies take the initial cost out of a different account from the running costs and quickly end in trouble as a result.

[Jerra]

14 hours ago, mrsmelly said:

This is a cock up and shows to me who is very pro CART that their monitoring system is not fit for purpose and could result in mistakes being made. This is in everybodys interest to get sorted out.

This is true but given the choice between the current system and spending money which could be spent on maintenance which would you prefer?

I suspect sorting out the problem to everybody's satisfaction will not be cheap.

[Mike Todd]

13 hours ago, Ferd said:

Our email was a little more threatening because it included the words "action for".   Perhaps they decided to tone it down a bit

If a boat has morored for more than 14 days then action ought to be taken.

The text clearly has conditionals before the sentence to which you object.

[MtB]

It seems to me that there is a failure of communication between the data logging IT system and its querying of the moorings permit system. I bet the data loggers log all boats and there must be some sort of cross checking between the two systems to prevent thousands of emails being sent in error.

So, in this case in this case we know something went wrong even though most of the time it works correctly. Which is cheaper for CRT? Spend a week or three investigating what went wrong, writing and testing a patch, or for Tim to email or call CRT and say "Sorry chaps, the first sighting was on my home mooring".  CRT will probably say "Oh ok, thanks for telling us" and that will be the end of it. 

Even if a fix is carried out, there will STILL be problems. There always are around the edges of data systems.

[Stilllearning]

On the subject of thousands of unnecessary emails being sent out, does anyone have figures for what, if anything, it costs to send an email? For unautomated mail, there is the time it takes to write it, but after that, what costs are there in computing time, servers etc?

[Chewbacka]

39 minutes ago, Stilllearning said:

On the subject of thousands of unnecessary emails being sent out, does anyone have figures for what, if anything, it costs to send an email? For unautomated mail, there is the time it takes to write it, but after that, what costs are there in computing time, servers etc?

Looking at the amount of Spam email washing over the world, not very much must be the answer , less than 1p I would guess for most, but for CRT?????

[MtB]

On 09/03/2017 at 15:46, Stilllearning said:

On the subject of thousands of unnecessary emails being sent out, does anyone have figures for what, if anything, it costs to send an email? For unautomated mail, there is the time it takes to write it, but after that, what costs are there in computing time, servers etc?

 

Given there aren't thousands being sent out it doesn't really matter does it?

There was one. And possibly a few other odd ones here and there. I'd say the cost of the automated email was negligible, but the cost of staff dealing with the real life response could be significant, but still trivial.

[Alway Swilby]

22 hours ago, mango said:

I wonder if anyone has tried continuous cruising without stopping.  Obviously not suitable for single-handers.  In-flight refuelling could be done when going up Hatton.

We did in flight refuleing on the Cheshire Locks. We were going down one of the paired locks and NB Alton was going down in the other. We took the opportunity to fill the diesel tank.

 

Edited March 9, 2017 by Alway Swilby

[Jess--]

17 hours ago, Stilllearning said:

On the subject of thousands of unnecessary emails being sent out, does anyone have figures for what, if anything, it costs to send an email? For unautomated mail, there is the time it takes to write it, but after that, what costs are there in computing time, servers etc?

automated email cost is minimal.
for spammers selling a product at £20 they reckon that 1 sale from a million emails is enough to make a profit (even after the costs of actually supplying the product and processing payment via credit card)

[Stilllearning]

14 minutes ago, Jess-- said:

automated email cost is minimal.
for spammers selling a product at £20 they reckon that 1 sale from a million emails is enough to make a profit (even after the costs of actually supplying the product and processing payment via credit card)

Thanks, that was what I was wondering about, but did not realise just how cheap it is!

[Jim Riley]

They also said that you had "been in the general area ", not "in one place", I hope you ask for further clarification so you don't fall foul inadvertently in the future. How big is a general area? How far do you have to move before you are out of it?

[mrsmelly]

2 minutes ago, Jim Riley said:

They also said that you had "been in the general area ", not "in one place", I hope you ask for further clarification so you don't fall foul inadvertently in the future. How big is a general area? How far do you have to move before you are out of it?

Problem is my mooring is in the General area so they clock me off my mooring and I get the email next day. They have apologised immediately but it makes me wonder about their system but as others have said it may be down to funding?

[Alan de Enfield]

4 minutes ago, Jim Riley said:

They also said that you had "been in the general area ", not "in one place", I hope you ask for further clarification so you don't fall foul inadvertently in the future. How big is a general area? How far do you have to move before you are out of it?

Apparently "general area" is 1km.

[Chewbacka]

19 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Apparently "general area" is 1km.

I seem to remember that CRT had on their website maps of canals with each canal split into 1km zones and the checkers mark which zone you are in.

I will see if I can find a link..........

 

Added

Here is the link    -     https://canalrivertrust.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapTools/index.html?appid=b46e3e0bda4a44a0be267df7674139a5

If you zoom into the map such that a km is a couple of inches long on a 15" laptop screen then click on the blue line marking the canal a box will pop-up showing the zone you are in.

Edited March 10, 2017 by Chewbacka

[GUMPY]

Oooo can you imagine the possible chaos if we all moved off our moorings for a coordinated period once every couple of months.

All I would have to do is push my boat across the canal, run the power cable across the bridge it would be like a home from home.

[mango]

19 hours ago, Alway Swilby said:

We did in flight refuleing on the Cheshire Locks. We were going down one of the paired locks and NB Alton was going down in the other. We took the opportunity to fill the diesel tank.

 

A bit easier than with aircraft, I imagine.  :-)

[Mike Todd]

5 hours ago, Stilllearning said:

Thanks, that was what I was wondering about, but did not realise just how cheap it is!

The main cost is in setting up sufficiently clever software to fool the Blacklists whose job it is to stop spammers. Bona fide distributions can be sent using commerical operations that do cost, or you can do it yourself if you have the time, patience and determination to get around the system that tries to stop you. Familiar story?

[magpie patrick]

On 3/10/2017 at 12:49, Jim Riley said:

They also said that you had "been in the general area ", not "in one place", I hope you ask for further clarification so you don't fall foul inadvertently in the future. How big is a general area? How far do you have to move before you are out of it?

When I emailed and asked (because I hadn't been in any one place for 14 days) I was advised that readings over 1km were used. I wouldn't know whether they have thresholds at 1km intervals or whether they can actually tell that your two mooring locations were 990m apart rather than 1010m. I suspect actually that anywhere that can be described as "Heyford" was in the "general area"

[MtB]

I suppose a reasonable response to an allegation one has been 'in the general area' would be to ask for the sightings then post them on here.

Then we can build up a picture of what their computer considers a 'general area'.

I doubt the spods who answer the phone or answer emails are given any reliable info on what counts.

[Chewbacka]

3 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

I suppose a reasonable response to an allegation one has been 'in the general area' would be to ask for the sightings then post them on here.

Then we can build up a picture of what their computer considers a 'general area'.

I doubt the spods who answer the phone or answer emails are given any reliable info on what counts.

I'm fairly sure they use this map as I said above.  It splits each canal into 1km lengths and each length has a unique 'name'.  You need to zoom in and then click on a length to get the detail.       https://canalrivertrust.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapTools/index.html?appid=b46e3e0bda4a44a0be267df7674139a5

[Jerra]

5 minutes ago, Chewbacka said:

I'm fairly sure they use this map as I said above.  It splits each canal into 1km lengths and each length has a unique 'name'.  You need to zoom in and then click on a length to get the detail.       https://canalrivertrust.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapTools/index.html?appid=b46e3e0bda4a44a0be267df7674139a5

Are you sure of the scale?  Having just looked at a zoomed in section there appears to be a "reference Location" about every 25m.   For example: Mill Lane Bridge No 74 at Great haywood is given a "functional location" there are then 3 before the junction with the S & W.  Which going by Google maps is about 100m

So while you can work out where each Km starts and finishes they aren't at least as far as I can find, easy to see.

[MtB]

On 15/03/2017 at 12:57, magpie patrick said:

When I emailed and asked (because I hadn't been in any one place for 14 days) I was advised that readings over 1km were used. I wouldn't know whether they have thresholds at 1km intervals or whether they can actually tell that your two mooring locations were 990m apart rather than 1010m. I suspect actually that anywhere that can be described as "Heyford" was in the "general area"

 

Even given they say they have 1km thresholds, that doesn't mean they only expect boaters to move 1km in 14 days. 

I'd say all it means is they can see your distance moved to a resolution of 1km.

[magpie patrick]

11 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Even given they say they have 1km thresholds, that doesn't mean they only expect boaters to move 1km in 14 days. 

I'd say all it means is they can see your distance moved to a resolution of 1km.

I'd agree, it means that, if you've moved less than 1km in a period that is more than 14 days the automatic warning will flag up. I'm not even sure they mean that though, as I doubt the logging is accurate enough. I think they mean (in this instance) that "Heyford Mill" is less than 1km from "Heyford Station". I also think they are wisely playing it safe with 1km, as even if you argue it's actually 1100m (which my move wasn't) it still isn't really far enough, in other words, the automated warning comes when you QUITE CLEARLY haven't moved far enough. 

As an aside the boat then spent a month at Dukes Cut with a cracked spill rail, I told CRT and had no hassle at all.