Research Confirms Plan My Walk has significant positive impacts
The goal of preventing incidents on Aotearoa’s tracks is one step closer after new research confirms Plan My Walk is positively impacting trampers' and hikers' safety-related behaviours.
The NZ Mountain Safety Council (MSC) developed Plan My Walk after in-depth analysis of incident data confirmed thousands of preventable safety incidents every year were attributed to a lack of quality planning and preparation.
New research exploring the impact of using Plan My Walk has confirmed that users have a better understanding of key information about their walk, more frequently leave their trip intentions and create a trip plan, think more about the potential impact of the weather forecast before leaving home, and feel substantially more confident heading out on their trip with the knowledge they need to be safe having completed suitable planning and preparation.
Launched in May 2021, Plan My Walk has already achieved some fantastic milestones related to target audience reach and engagement, including winning the TVNZ-NZ Marketing Award for Excellence in Marketing Communications Strategy.
Despite this early success, we knew that measuring the impact Plan My Walk was having on tramper and hiker safety needed to go beyond user numbers and look at deeper impacts associated with safety-related behaviour change.
To measure this, we conducted a survey of Plan My Walk users to understand how Plan My Walk was positively impacting them.
Before we look at the findings, here’s a quick look at who completed the research:
- 50% identified as ‘intermediate’ tramping experience level
- The gender split was 50% male and 50% female
- Region of residence was spread throughout New Zealand
- The largest age group were 45-54 years (26%) followed by 55-64 years (23%)
Here is a selection of key findings:
Total may not sum to 100% due to rounding. Open image for better viewing here.
Total may not sum to 100% due to rounding. Open image for better viewing here.
These results clearly show that using Plan My Walk has significant benefits, and that the platform is providing very real positive benefits for trampers and hikers. We’re excited to continue monitoring the impact, and using these results to help shape future updates and improvements.
*The survey was conducted online between 22 July and 15 August 2022. Invitation emails were sent to all registered Plan My Walk users who had not opted out/unsubscribed from receiving MSC communications. At that time, this was approximately 37,000 unique people. A total of n=1,163 people completed the survey.
Thank you to the people who completed the survey and helped us learn more about the effects of our efforts. A big thanks to the team at Research New Zealand who delivered this research. If you have questions, please get in touch with Nathan.Watson@mountainsafety.org.nz