Instruments for statistical observation at national borders in the context of free movement of persons: The case of Spain.[1]
Author: Carlos Romero-Dexeus
Person in charge of the Spanish Border Survey of Inbound Tourism
- Introduction.
The Spanish Border Survey of Inbound Tourism (Movimientos Turísticos en Fronteras: Frontur) is the basic analysis and observation tool for the tourism of non-residents entering Spain across the various borders. The body that draws up and runs the survey is the Instituto de Estudios Turísticos, under the aegis of the State Department for Trade and Tourism, as part of the National Statistics Plan (Plan Estadístico Nacional).
This survey was born to cover an information loophole caused by the coming into force of the Treaty of Schengen, establishing the free movement of persons within the territory of the European Union. This marked the disappearance of the registers kept up to that time by the State Security Forces recording all residents from other member states entering Spain via any of the various road- or rail border-crossing points or at airports.
A statistical tool was therefore set up, different from the normal procedure in that it uses not only questionnaire-type information but also purely administrative information from various bodies responsible for road traffic, airports, trains and ships. It is precisely this combined information source that makes Frontur a singular statistical survey in the context of these types of border operations, in its efficient pooling of information sources as different as an automatic count and a questionnaire.
Frontur is a monthly statistical survey which, as already mentioned, uses a mixed system to obtain its results: based upon the relevant administrative records (concerning each one of the transportation modes); both vehicle counts at road border crossings (2,165,159 vehicles were counted in 2000) and sample interviewing (at road and airport border points) are carried out on a continuous basis. Each one of the four transportation modes involves the collaboration of the corresponding official body: the road traffic authority (Dirección General de Tráfico), airport authority (Aena), seaport authority (Puertos del Estado) and the national railway operator (RENFE).
As far as sample interviewing is concerned, Frontur actually consists of two different surveys, one being carried out on visitors leaving the country, the other one on those entering it. The entry survey is currently being carried out at 22 road border crossings as well as 17 airports, using a brief questionnaire that records general aspects of the trip, through a set of questions that vary according to the typology of the traveller being interviewed: Travellers are classified accordingly into tourists (foreign residents intending to stay overnight in Spain), excursionists or same-day visitors (those staying less than 24 hours), and Spanish residents returning home after a trip abroad.
In the exit sample survey, which is also carried out at both road borders and airports, a longer questionnaire is used, which in addition to the questions contained in the entry questionnaire, includes personal data as well as quantitative and subjective questions regarding the planning of the trip and characteristics of the stay.
Throughout 2000, 73,000 entry interviews were made at road borders, and 167,951 entry interviews were made at airports on a total of 1,928 flights. As for the exit survey, a total of 25,000 interviews were conducted at road borders and 20,700 at airports.
- Some methodological aspects related to the collection of information on inflows of persons and vehicles entering the country through the road borders.
Frontur can be said to consist of four basic subsurveys, one for each way of entering Spain, be it road, air, sea or rail. The two most important, however, are roads and airports. It should not be forgotten that 94% of the tourists coming to Spain during the last year did so by road or air. It is therefore these two subsurveys that call for the most elaborate treatment and take up the most human and financial resources.
On this occasion we will deal exclusively with the road subsurvey, i.e., the monthly collection of information on the flow of vehicles and persons across the various border points of Spain, ignoring for the time being the fact that this information then has to be pooled at the end with that obtained from the other transport modes.
The ultimate aim of the processes to be described below is none other than the most accurate estimation possible of the number of persons entering Spain across each of the 22 border posts that have been taken into account for conducting the study, plus their breakdown by basic characteristics of interest from the point of view of tourism analysis.
Spanish Road Border Crossings Map under the control of Frontur survey.
2.1. Estimating the number of travellers
The process of estimating the number of persons entering Spain through the road borders can be divided into three stages:
- First Stage:
In this first stage we need to know the total number of vehicles that cross the road borders; this information is furnished by the Dirección General de Tráfico (DGT), a body whose responsibilities include that of finding out the volume of traffic on the various roads of Spain’s national network. This information is obtained from innumerable automatic counting devices fitted at all road borders, working 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The importance of this type of administrative information in the following estimation process lies in the fact that it is the only information with a universal character; i.e. it offers an ideal reference framework for estimating the total number of visitors crossing the borders.
The information furnished by DGT has some limitations, the most important for carrying out the survey are:
-The impossibility of distinguishing more than three vehicle lengths: light, medium or large.
-No information is given on the number of vehicle occupants, much less on their nationality or the length of their stay.
-It cannot distinguish between lorries and coaches/buses.
-On some occasions the automatic counters may break down for a longer period than is desirable, whereupon it becomes necessary to resort to information from similar days of previous months or the same month of the previous year.
Example of the fields contained by a data file sent in by DGT:
MONTH 10/99, PF = E011, ORIGINAL DATA OF DGT LIGHT
H00 H01 H02 H03 H04 H05 H06 H07 H08 H09 H10 H11 H12 H13 H14 H15 H16 H17 H18 H19 H20 H21 H22 H23
E011 10 1 1 5 1 1 1 22 29 15 18 19 17 33 42 52 86 82 66 71 59 90 73 66 97 93 87 63 43 39 36
E011 10 2 1 6 2 2 2 39 33 26 29 22 30 30 42 68 65 94 167 117 93 108 96 107 109 73 67 82 53 44 39
E011 10 3 1 7 3 3 4 35 34 27 12 20 23 22 38 79 106 113 123 124
To overcome these limitations Frontur has set up a manual counting system and a vehicle-entry questionnaire.
- Second Stage:
Once we know the universe of vehicles entering Spain across the various road borders, with the above-mentioned limitations, we will then stand in need of some type of sample information for ascertaining, on the one hand, the type of vehicle in question, mainly to distinguish between lorries and coaches/buses and, on the other, the vehicle occupation and the basic characteristics of the persons travelling therein.
Agents are therefore posted at a sample of the same border-crossing points as those that contain the automatic counters of DGT, working in 8-hour shifts and in a sample of days from each month of the year. Portable computers of an enormous versatility enable them to simply key in all passing vehicles, identifying clearly not only the type of vehicle but also the number of occupants and the nationality of the licence plate.
The information thus obtained at the end of each month gives a more detailed breakdown of vehicle flows across a given border than that furnished by DGT. This information within each 8-hour working day is census based, i.e., it registers each and every one of the cars crossing a road border on a given day of a given week of the month. Furthermore the portable computers are perfectly synchronised with the clocks of DGT’s automatic counters so that each of the manually recorded registers, with the time at which it was recorded, can be easily cross-checked against the information from this same time band from DGT.
Sometimes, on roads with the heaviest traffic or in months of the year with the greatest tourism movements, such as August, it is necessary to post two agents manually counting the vehicles on each carriageway of a motorway. This is the case of the two motorways with heaviest traffic between France and Spain: Biriatou and La Junquera.
The information obtained from the manual counts is the following:
a)The type of vehicle entering the country, distinguishing between: light vehicles (car, car towing a caravan or trailer, motor caravan, van or minibus, motorbike, others) and heavy (microbus, coach, bus, lorry, large van or pickup).
b)The number of persons travelling in the vehicle. In the case of buses, microbuses and coaches a note is made of the number of passengers by the following classification: empty, fewer than 10 passengers, 10 to 30 passengers, more than 30 passengers.
c)Nationality of the licence plate of the entering vehicles, according to the following closed list of countries: Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Great Britain, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Switzerland, Andorra and others.
Given that these manual counts and sample information can be obtained without stopping the vehicles, the number of counts made throughout the year is very high. In the last year total of 1.5 million vehicles of different types were counted; in the months of greatest traffic up to 300,000 vehicles can be registered.
The procedures described above tell us the number of vehicles and the average occupation, and hence the number of persons that have entered in each type of vehicle and licence plate nationality. All this assumes that the selected vehicle sample for manual counts is representative of the total universe of vehicles afforded by DGT.
- Third Stage.
Once we know the total number of persons by type of vehicle and nationality that have entered across the road borders, it is then necessary for tourism purposes to find out some essential characteristics of these persons, to be able to give a detailed tabulation of the previously obtained total of persons, breaking them down by variables such as home country, type of visit (resident in Spain, tourist, same-day visitor, passer through), motive of the trip, type of accommodation, number of overnight stays, etc.
The variables included in the questionnaire and their possible states are:
a)Means of transport used, in accordance with the above-mentioned classification.
b)Nationality.
c)Home country: Spain, France, Portugal, Morocco, Germany, Italy, Others.
d)Duration of stay.
e)Destination.
f)Motive of the trip.
g)Total occupants in the vehicle.
Besides these variables there is another variable of enormous importance for tourism purposes; as the type of visitor which is generated from the characteristics “home country” and “duration of stay”. This is a characteristic of the journey maker that is not directly asked for but it is deduced from the fact of whether or not the person is resident in Spain and, if not, whether he/she plans to make any overnight stays (then to be able to classify them as tourists or same-day visitors) or whether he/she is passing through en route to another country.
Groups of travellers identify by the investigation:
-People resident in Spain who are returning from or leaving for a foreign country.
-Foreigners who are entering or leaving the country who are travelling by day without staying overnight in Spain but returning to sleep in their place of residence.
-Foreigners who are passing through Spain but whose destination (if they are entering the country) or their place of origin (if they are leaving) is another country.[2]
-Foreigners who come to Spain for whatever reason and stay for at least one night. This is the main group to be surveyed and the one that is most interesting for the investigation.
The best way of finding out all these characteristics is an entry questionnaire of the vehicles previously selected by type of border post and time band. In this case, although the questionnaire is very short, it will be necessary to stop the vehicles. Refusals occur, either because the vehicle fails to stop or refuses to answer; in this case a note is made of the type of vehicle, the nationality of the licence plate and the number of occupants. This allows a control to be kept at all times over any possible deviations or biases in the selected sample.[3]
The small size of the road-entry questionnaire means that a huge amount of information can be collected throughout the year, 70,000 questionnaires having been carried out last year.
After the third and last stage we are now in a position to be able to ascertain the total number of tourists, same-day visitors and residents who enter Spain across the various road borders, together with some of their main characteristics. This information is always forthcoming within a time of two weeks, thanks to the automatic modem system of sending data collected in the most distant parts of Spain from the agents’ personal computers to the central office where all the information is processed. The information sent includes both manual counts and entry questionnaires.
Lastly, another benefit of the information obtained from administrative registers, manual counts and entry questionnaires is the elevation of exit surveys to the population universe furnished by entries.
The exit survey provides the bulk of tourism-related information that proves highly useful for the sector when analysing trends by nationalities, dates, destinations, expenditure, etc. The questionnaire includes not only the basic breakdown values of the expenditure survey, in the interests of a perfect correspondence with the universe, but also questions of a personal nature together with others of a quantitative character, to do with the identification of the visitor and aspects concerning the design of the trip and their stay in Spain (See attached exit questionnaire of Frontur).[4]
2.2. Sample Design
The road border samples have been designed with three factors in mind: the objective of the study, the auxiliary or complementary information available and the human and economic resources to be used. The first factor prompted us to distribute the overall annual sample in both space and time, so as to cover exhaustively all border crossings and at least partially the different times of the year. The second factor to bear in mind is the information regularly furnished by DGT on the vehicles passing through the various border crossings. Finally, the cost of the survey determines some important aspects thereof. Mention should be made here of the material impossibility of studying adequately all the months of the year and all the border crossings.
In view of the countries bordering on Spain and the traffic towards Africa, four groups of border crossing points have been established, each one corresponding to a type of traveller flow. One is made up by the border crossing points with Portugal, another by the border crossing points with France, another only by Seo de Urgel and another in Algeciras to take in Africa traffic. The inclusion of Seo de Urgel among the crossing points corresponding to France stems from the fact that many visitors from France enter Spain via the Andorra road.
Typologies of Border Crossing Points
To back up the sample design use is made of a previous study that was carried out when initiating the Frontur survey: Typologies in each border crossing point. This study allowed a precise typology to be obtained of days in each border post, so that a classification can be made of the 365 days for each post of the reference period in search of groups of days with a similar traffic throughout the 24 hours.
The variables to be used to ascertain the typology are the 24 hours of the day and the vehicle flows provided by DGT. Although the latter data comes in three categories (light, medium and heavy) it had been grouped into two light categories and the rest. In statistical terms, therefore, we now have 365 cases or days to classify in terms of 48 variables (24 hours for light vehicles and 24 hours for the rest).
These quantitative type typologies have been obtained from the known historical data of DGT, but in order to be of use they need to be extrapolated to the following year. In other words, a prediction is made of the type of day for each of the 365 days of the sample period running from May99 to April00. To this end different statistical breakdown techniques are used.
The following factors are taken into account when selecting the months for manual counts or questionnaires in each post:
-Which are the most important posts in terms of their heavy traffic. These posts will be surveyed every month of the year.
-Which are the most important holiday months. In these months all or most border crossing points will also be surveyed. Eg. July, August and March.
-Alternate months in which counts or questionnaires are effected in remaining points, so that if one month has not been included in the sample, the previous one was or the next one or an adjacent one will be.