Control Loading

[King Penguin]

I would be grateful for opinions from all the experts on here regarding the maximum reasonable rate of control visits, in terms of expected competitor visits / start time window, or in any other way you would like to express it. This is for a conventional daytime terrain event, and excluding start/finish/final controls.
Thanks

[Arnold]

I've been using a maximum of 4 per minute, although 3 per minute is probably better.
Ocad will tell you automatically how many runners you have per control if you input the expected numbers of runners per course. Then you can just divide that by the start window length.

If like me you try and reduce unnecessary work then it's amazing how many controls you can delete at the end of the planning process by moving runners onto nearby ones. Assuming you haven't gone mental with controls per course, then even for large events there should be no need to have any more than 60 or so controls.

[DJM]

The advice for a WMOC is for up to 8 per minute ...

[King Penguin]

Thanks.
I had been thinking probably 2.5 per minute, which for a 2-hour start window means a max.of 300 visits per control.
Pleased to hear others consider more visits acceptable (not for every control of course), as I was concerned I might have too few controls rather than too many.

[pete.owens]

I try to limit it to 3/min, but there are one or two other things to bear in mind other than the overall start window.

At times there will be queues forming so you could have periods with one competitor starting every course each minute. This has the greatest impact on early controls as runners will tend to disperse. So load the first few controls according to the number of courses rather than number of competiotors.

Towards the end of the course runners will be more spread out - the finish window is wider than the start window - so controls can be more heavily loaded.

[andypat]

I've worked to a max of 6 per min for sprint previously - I'm sure this was written down somewhere but not sure where. Thats fine for SI units on trestles but if they were hung on wires (or worse EMIT hung on wires) I'd reduce accordingly.

For terrain Id say your main issue is the risk of other competitors leading into controls if overloaded, so you,d need ot take account of terrain etc.

[paul]

https://youtu.be/XrweytnixCM?t=265

[Duncan]

It is likely that only one control unit will be required at most control sites. A control loading of over 500 competitors per hour per control unit is easily supported for normal events.

So just over 8 competitors per minute.

[King Penguin]

That sounds more like a hash or cross-country race.

[andy L]

I've aimed for max 2/min usually, tried not to go above 3/min.

[SIman]

The technical manual for the Scottish 6 Days includes

Apart from the final control, one SI Unit at each control site should be sufficient unless there is a large volume of competitors through the control. With a four hour start interval, a reasonable target maximum is 1200 competitors for the majority of controls. If it is possible that this number will be exceeded, a second SI unit and T-Bar will be required and the Computer Manager must be advised.

[awk]

Thanks.
I had been thinking probably 2.5 per minute, which for a 2-hour start window means a max.of 300 visits per control.
Pleased to hear others consider more visits acceptable (not for every control of course), as I was concerned I might have too few controls rather than too many.

FWIW, on JK Day 3, we've gone for a maximum control loading of 400 over a 4-hr start period. That's bearing in mind the open nature of the terrain, so we will have considerably lower numbers per minute than most.

Assuming you haven't gone mental with controls per course, then even for large events there should be no need to have any more than 60 or so controls.

[graeme]

That's bearing in mind the open nature of the terrain

Nice to see someone thinking rather than quoting irrelevant forest numbers!
The important thing is whether people are gaining unfair advantage by seeing people punch.
Some maths... 100 people/hour is, on average, one every 36 seconds. At, say 10mins/km it means on average you'll be 60m from the control when the previous person punches. In a typical Scottish forest, you wont see 60m ahead, on Kilnsey probably you will. That's not unfair if you can also see the feature or the flag from that far away, but should caution against any hiding in holes. Not that you'd do that anyway

[awk]

At, say 10mins/km it means on average you'll be 60m from the control when the previous person punches.

So at Kilnsey pace, that should be 100m+ then.

[graeme]

So at Kilnsey pace, that should be 100m+ then.

Not quite sure what you mean here. I think what it comes down to is that test-running the course on your own will tell you nothing about the experience competitors will have. You will be navigating to features, they will mainly be running towards other orienteers.

Coming back to your question: the 6-day guidelines are intended to make the competitor experience one of detailed navigation to controls. Given the size of the JK and nature of Kilnsey, that may be impossible. If you decide it is, then the control loading can go up *a lot*.

And if you think that replacing "detailed navigation to controls" with route choice and picking the right group to follow isn't fun orienteering, there are 15000 competitors at Jukola who would disagree.