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A Swedish study shows that the country’s school sports halls are far from being fully utilised. With HallMonitor, it becomes possible to generate better data on the actual use of sports facilities and provide municipalities with a more predictable and reliable basis for planning, prioritisation and allocation of time slots.
A report from Swedish Centrum för Idrottsforskning (In English: Swedish Centre for Sport Research), also known as CIF shows that large parts of Sweden’s school sports halls stand empty or are only partly used outside school hours.
Although around two-thirds of the country’s sports halls are located at schools, many do not match the needs of sports associations – whether in size, equipment or accessibility. The result is that valuable square metres remain underused, while many clubs experience a shortage of training times.
According to CIF, the many empty hours are rarely due to a lack of willingness to rent out the facilities. The challenge is rather the lack of documented knowledge about how the facilities are actually used. Municipalities and schools point in the report to technical barriers, low demand for late time slots and a lack of overview of utilisation rates.
“Without better data, it is difficult to know where the needs are greatest and which initiatives have the greatest effect,” says Daniel Glimvert, coordinator at CIF.
CIF’s report highlights that many municipalities do not systematically follow up on how much the booked hours in sports halls are actually used. The most common method is manual visual inspections performed by staff. Malmö, for example, conducts 10,000–20,000 such inspections annually, while Stockholm has 15–20 employees performing manual counts in the afternoons and evenings.
Nevertheless, the report shows that clubs often book more hours than they actually use. At the same time, municipalities can rarely present precise utilisation figures, which makes it difficult to justify new facilities or optimise the use of existing ones:
“It’s not acceptable to rely on assumptions. We need to have it in black and white and be able to document it politically. How are we supposed to justify the need for a new hall if we don’t have the statistics under control for the existing ones?” – Municipal representative in the CIF report
One example highlighted by CIF is a research project in the Swedish Linköping Municipality, where HallMonitor contributes with continuous monitoring and data collection to create an accurate picture of the actual use of the facilities.
To ensure a more precise understanding of utilisation, CIF, Linköping University and Linköping Municipality have launched a research project (insert link) where HallMonitor serves as the technological partner. The project examines how automatic activity measurement can provide accurate insight into daily usage.
CIF describes the purpose of the project as: “to investigate how sports halls are used in practice in order to utilise resources more efficiently.”
Today, many municipalities can only register whether a club shows up – not how many people participate. This means there is often a difference between what is booked and what is actually used. CIF emphasises that participation numbers typically decrease later in the season, and that several activities use less space than expected.
When an activity in practice uses only part of the hall, even though an entire court has been allocated, it creates challenges for other clubs needing time slots. This raises the question of how to define “full occupancy”. As one municipality puts it:
“What is full occupancy really? If there are fewer than 20 people on the court, they should not have a full hall. Eight people cannot utilise a full-size court on their own.” – Sollentuna Municipality
HallMonitor contributes documentation that was previously not possible to collect. The automatic and anonymous measurements give an accurate picture of how many people actually participate – and how much capacity is truly used. This provides municipalities with a reliable and transparent basis for planning.
HallMonitor’s anonymised sensor technology automatically measures:
The data offers an objective and stable foundation for decisions that were previously based on samples or assumptions.
The report points out that the challenge is rarely a lack of sports halls. The challenge is that the supply does not match the demand. Many school halls are too small, difficult to access or lack proper equipment – but without systematic data, municipalities do not know to what extent the existing facilities are actually being used.
HallMonitor’s data provides the transparency municipalities are asking for:
Improved insight and data provide a more stable foundation for planning and operating sports facilities. HallMonitor delivers the technology that makes this possible – by measuring, documenting and visualising usage in a way that is anonymous, precise and practical.
The collaboration between research environments, municipalities and technology companies demonstrates how shared efforts can strengthen both sports participation and society’s investments in facilities.
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.
