Leisure and Tourism Research

Afan Forest Visitor Survey
For a number of years, ORS conducted the Afan Forest Park Visitor Survey on behalf of Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council, the Forestry Commission, the Wales Tourist Board and the Welsh Development Agency. The aim of the survey was to enable the Council to provide services within the park that meet the needs of its diverse range of visitors.

Swansea Bay Summer Festival Visitor Attraction Surveys
ORS has regularly worked with the City and County of Swansea to interview visitors to the Swansea Bay Summer Festival. Personal interviews are normally conducted on-street with a representative cross-section of visitors to each of the wide range of events and attractions during the Festival.

South West Wales Tourism Partnership
ORS was commissioned by South West Wales Tourism Partnership (SWWTP) to undertake a survey of Trade Operator opinion across Carmarthenshire, Neath Port Talbot, Pembrokeshire and Swansea. An online survey undertaken with tourism trade operators which was promoted to via a range of methods, including press and radio coverage, at events and roadshows and via email to TTO members.

Gower Commons Initiative
ORS undertook a programme of focus groups on behalf of the Gower Commons Initiative, consulting with commoners, community councillors, tourism providers, and access and recreation representatives. The groups helped form the marketing strategy and assisted in identifying some of the important issues that were then included in a postal survey sent to all Gower residents.

Carmarthenshire Recreation
Carmarthenshire County Council’s Recreation and Sports Division commissioned ORS to conduct a detailed questionnaire survey of Carmarthenshire residents on their views of the services provided. The Council also conducted a survey of its members on their views of the services provided at local parks and playgrounds.

Transport Studies

Bridgend County Borough Council Taxi Strategy Research
ORS was commissioned to undertake a study to inform Bridgend's future integrated transport policy and shape the locations and form of private hire transport in the county. This included a range of quantitative and qualitative methods, including on-street counts that informed a modelling exercise to establish existing and projected demand for taxis across the county.

Encouraging Sustainable Transport: Personalised Travel Planning for Young People
ORS worked with South West Wales Integrated Trasport Consortium (SWWITCH) to assist them with an investigation of the transport needs of young people across South West Wales. The research aimed to gain an understanding of young people’s access and travel needs in urban and rural areas, and how information and reduced costs could possibly influence travel behaviour. Participants maintained online travel diaries over a period of 10 weeks in order to measure any changes in transport behaviour.

Bridgend County Borough Council Car Parking Study
Working in partnership with Gwent Consultancy, ORS was appointed by Bridgend CBC to undertake a detailed research project about car parking in the residential areas around a local hospital. Using a detailed sampling approach, counts of parked cars were conducted across the study area at different times and on different days to gather objective data about usage patterns. A survey of local residents was then undertaken to understand their views and establish support for a residents parking scheme.

Applied Research Support for Universities

Swansea University Psychology Department
ORS was commissioned by Swansea University Psychology Department to gather data to inform the "Development of a Social Inclusion Index to Capture Subjective and Objective Life Domains". The data was collected through administering detailed hour-long interviews with residents selected at random from across a number of contrasting study areas.

Swansea University Department of Sports Science
ORS was asked to provide data capture support to the Department of Sports Science at Swansea University. A self-completion survey had been administered with sports science sports medicine practitioners and ORS setup and populated a structured dataset to enable academics to analyse the survey results.

Research Projects for Charities and other Non-Profit Making Organisations

Review of Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s Policy Function
ORS was commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation to undertake an advisory review of perceptions and expectations of the Foundation’s role in guiding and leading public policy initiatives. Detailed interviews were undertaken with senior politicians, local government managers and academics in order to properly understand the full range of views.

Forestry Commission Wales: Arson Reduction Campaign
Forestry Commission Wales commissioned ORS to evaluate the effectiveness of its Arson Reduction Campaign in the Treherbert and Tonypandy areas of Rhondda Cynon Taf. The campaign sought to raise awareness of how to report arson incidents to Crimestoppers, and samples of residents were interviewed both before and after the campaign.

Customer Perceptions of Water Quality
For more than 10 years, ORS worked in partnership with Dwr Cymru Welsh Water to undertake customer perception surveys of their water quality. Systematic samples were drawn along the mains distribution pipeline in areas thought to be affected by poor water quality, and residents were interviewed before and after rennovation works were completed to demonstrate to the industry regulator the effectiveness of improvement schemes.

Modelling the Future Seafarer Population
ORS was commissioned by the Maritime Charities Funding Group to model the future population of UK seafarers.  The aim of the research was to better understand how the support services provided by maritime charities are likely to be affected in the future by the changing size of the current and former seafarer populations.

Wales TUC
Working in partnership with the University of Wales Institute Business School, ORS was commissoned by the Wales TUC, Equal Opportunities Commission, Disability Rights Commission and other partners to undertake an evaluative review of trades union’s equality and diversity activities as part of the Equality in Work project.

Commercial and Market Research

Views of S4C and “Switched On” Magazine
ORS was commissioned by S4C to explore public opinion on their English language magazine called “Switched On”. The study also sought to understand general viewing patterns of their Welsh language programming and specific viewing over Christmas and the New Year period. The research was based a random sample of 400 personal interviews and a follow-up programme of focus group discussions.

Customer Perception and Product Evaluation
ORS was appointed by RF Brookes, suppliers of prepackaged meals to Marks & Spencer, to undertake a customer perception and product evaluation study with a cross-section of consumers. Focussing on their range of potato-topped pies, customers were provided with a number of meals to sample at home before attending a focus group discussion to share their views.

Welsh Language Projects

Welsh Language Board
ORS worked with The Welsh Language Board to evaluate the ‘Iaith Gwaith’ initiative, which aims to draw customer attention to a bilingual service and direct customers toward staff who speak Welsh. The project evaluated the effectiveness of the initiative through qualitative consultations across Wales. The outcomes enabled us to provide clear recommendations to the Welsh Language Board executive that directly influenced the branding and communication of the initiative moving forward.