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The research team from the Public Opinion Programme at the University of Hong Kong yesterday conducted a head-count of the demonstrators joining the march organized by Civil Human Rights Front and Pan democratic Legislative Councillors to call for full democracy in 2012. The team set up a counting station on the footbridge at the junction of Hennessy Road and Arsenal Street, and estimated the number of demonstrators to be between 10,000 and 12,000.
The team used a method it has developed for many years, by dividing the road surface of Hennessy Road mentioned cross-sectionally into two lanes of human traffic, and then counted the number of demonstrators passing through each lane at regular intervals of two minutes per every 4 minutes. The total number of demonstrators passing through the check point was then calculated, and the figure adjusted by a coefficient previously calculated to cater for the ratio of demonstrators who either left before reaching the check point, or joined the march beyond the check point. Herewith the counts of the two lanes at different time slots:
Starting time |
Finishing time |
Lane 1 |
Lane 2 |
Remarks |
Total |
1638 |
1700 |
1,862 |
1,768 |
The frontline arrived at 1638. The rally was stopped 4 times by the police, each lasted about 1 minute. |
3,630 |
1700 |
1730 |
2,056 |
1,916 |
Stopped by the police 6 times, each lasted about 1 minute. |
3,972 |
1730 |
1735 |
278 |
513 |
The rear end of the procession passed through at 1735 |
791 |
Total |
4,196 |
4,197 |
|
8,393 |
* Other lanes were not demarked for demonstration.
The above figures show that from the arrival of the first demonstrator to the departure of the last, it is estimated that 8,393 participants had passed through the footbridge at the junction of Hennessy Road and Arsenal Street, but the figure excludes those who left before reaching the check point, and those who joined the rally beyond the check point. The team therefore used an adjustment factor obtained from the headcount project for the December 4, 2005 Rally, namely, 1.18 to 1.38, to make projections. The number of people who participated in yesterday's rally was estimated to range from 10,000 to 12,000.
For the method adopted by POP in each headcount project, please refer to the "Research on Mass Gatherings and Rallies Feature Page" and other related feature pages at the "POP SITE" (http://hkupop.pori.hk). POP will soon re-organize the information and provide a "one-stop service" for readers to enquire such information.
Points to note:
* HKUPOP conducted yesterday's headcount without sponsorship from any organization. POP did it purely out of intellectual curiosity. Resources allowed, we will continue to conduct such exercises. We welcome sponsorship from any organization, on condition that we can design and conduct the headcount independently, while sponsors have the right to use the data ahead of others.
* Because the headcount operation and survey data inevitably involved human and sampling errors, in order to match the precision levels of the figures, it is better to round them up to the nearest thousand when citing them. |
