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For many years, the Danish Institute for Sports Studies has focused on how well Danish municipalities are covered with sports facilities through their facility index. Now the index has been replaced by an interactive tool, the ‘Facility Comparator’, where municipalities can choose whom they want to compare themselves with. This creates better opportunities for local insight and more qualified conversations about facility coverage.
But does it provide a complete picture of how facilities support active leisure?
At HallMonitor, we believe the perspective should be expanded – counting square metres and facilities is no longer enough. We should also look at user behaviour, utilisation and activation.
The new interactive tool, the ‘Facility Comparator’, allows municipalities to combine facility categories and choose relevant comparison municipalities. This makes it possible to work more dynamically with data and tailor analyses to local circumstances.
This is an important step, because the need for facilities varies significantly depending on target groups, organisational structures and available resources. And unlike a single ranking list, municipalities can now get a more nuanced picture of coverage and detect patterns that were previously difficult to see.
It is a clear improvement – but one perspective is still missing: actual use.
A number of facilities does not reveal how many citizens actually use them, when they are used – or what value they create in everyday life.
We know from analyses (including Tal & Viden) that facility usage changes as leisure habits change. Many are active outside organised sports, and usage varies significantly across age, geography and life situation. This requires more flexible planning and better insight into real usage patterns.
At HallMonitor, we therefore propose supplementing the ‘Facility Comparator’ with a more dynamic metric: number of users per facility.
With data from the HallMonitor platform, municipalities and administrations gain insights such as:
HallMonitor data provides the part of the picture that the ‘Facility Comparator’ does not cover – actual use. Together, the two create a unified data foundation showing both how much capacity exists and how it is used in practice.
This strengthens the basis for prioritising investments, renovations and operational adjustments – and for documenting the value facilities create in everyday life.
When facility coverage is combined with actual use, it becomes possible to work more purposefully with equal access to sports and leisure. The question is not only how many facilities exist – but who uses them, and how they are used.
By combining activity data with knowledge about social, demographic and geographic differences, municipalities can identify challenges, clarify needs and work more precisely with inclusion and sustainable utilisation.
This creates a more balanced allocation of time and resources – and a stronger basis for political priorities.
The demand for updated and coherent data on the use of sports and leisure facilities is increasing. The ‘Facility Comparator’ makes it easier to analyse facility coverage, but it still only describes capacity – not activity levels.
HallMonitor supports the next step in development by delivering insights into real-time data, usage patterns and capacity analyses that can be combined with municipalities’ other planning tools. This provides a more robust decision-making foundation across departments, associations and local politics.
In the end, it’s not just about how many facilities we have – but how many we activate.
Understand how HallMonitor detects activity and optimises facilities – fully anonymously and in real time.
See how HallMonitor can support you and your facilities – from sports halls to parks.
Explore insights from municipalities and facilities already using HallMonitor in their daily operations.
