Traffic survey
I studied the flow of traffic coming from Ambleside on the A591 lake road south outside Hayes garden centre. I studied this for 20mins from 2:30pm to 2:50pm .The vehicles were recorded as on a table. I counted different types of vehicles so that I could find out how the winter season had affected the levels of traffic in Ambleside. The categories that I studied were cars, vans, lorries, public busses, tour coaches, motorbikes, bicycles and other. I recorded the vehicles as a tally chart on a table. Other groups studying other locations all over Ambleside collected the results for the whole town. I only studied one location with my group, there was a total of 13 locations. All of the results will be placed together on a table, studied and recorded. This will provide us with a more accurate complete piece of data. I was counting all of the results for the whole town so that I would have a more accurate piece of information to find out how the winter season had affected the levels of traffic in Ambleside. I will present my results from my traffic survey as a graph with all of the other results from the town on a tracing overlay over a road map of Ambleside. The traffic survey was unreliable because the location that I was studying had road works on it on that day that was causing a diversion when my survey took place. This could have affected my results e.g. Many people who would have been travelling on that road on that day might have not have done due to the diversion and chose an alternative route. Also the flow of traffic was not continuous due to the extra traffic light that had been placed there that day e.g. the traffic came at intervals when the traffic on the opposite side of the road had finished. The time of day was also an unreliability, i.e. The flow of traffic alters during the day according to the time, e.g. More people would have been travelling after 5PM because of office hours, and less people would have been travelling during the day in the morning and afternoon as to the majority of people being at work at these times. If I did the traffic survey again I would have done the survey at three times, once in the morning, once in the afternoon and once in the eavning. This would have given a more accurate piece of data to find out how the levels of traffic were affected by the winter season. I will present my information for the traffic survey as a traffic flow chart when all of the results for the town have been collected.
Building surveys/Street plans
I studied three streets; (Compston Road, Waterhead Street and Lake Road South).I chose one street from the Central business district (Compston Road),a street from the main tourist area (Waterhead) and a street form the tourist services area (Lake Road south).I chose these streets so that it would provide a good contrast between them. I studied the streets by recording information about them on a table. I created the table myself and used the following titles: the name of the building, the use of the ground floor, how many floors and the quality of the building. I graded the quality of the building from 0 – 10 (0 being the lowest and 10 being the highest)I was trying to find out about the buildings in Ambleside and how they varied at different locations ie nearer to the CBD and nearer to Lake Windermere also to see what the tourist attractions are in ambleside. I chose to record the name of each building for two reasons, the first was to find out the main tourist attractions in Ambleside and the second was to help me to determine the building use. I chose to record the quality and number of floors of the buildings to see how they varied along the different streets. I collected each piece of information for each column title by observation, I recorded them on a table. There were a few problems that I found out while recording information, e.g. it was difficult to judge the amount of space a building used on my table (length in boxes) because both sides of the street had to start and end on equal rows on my table. The survey was unreliable because many of the buildings had different uses on different floors, also it was difficult on some buildings to determine the building use. Also only three streets were studied. If I did this fieldwork again I would improve it by studying more streets and have some better system for deciding how long (in boxes on my table) buildings should be. I shall present the information from my street survey on a table with four headings (building name, building use, number of floors and quality of building).I will also make graphs, percentage squares, scatter diagrams and an analysis table.
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Photographs/Field sketches
I took photographs and field sketches of a few buildings and sites. I drew sketches of the Smallwood bed and breakfast and the Fisherbeck cottage. It was to find out more information about individual locations and to help build up a better picture of Ambleside. I was trying to find out more detailed information about buildings such as their quality, size, age and about the building. I am going to present this information as a drawing with detailed labels. If I did this fieldwork again the sketches and photos would be improved by a few reasons; I would spend more time to draw the sketches and I would add more detail to them, I would also add more detail to my labels. I would take more photos so that I would have a better picture of that particular site when I studied them back at school. I would also add more detail to my labels on my sketches.