1
00:00:04,480 --> 00:00:07,920
Hello, I'm sitting at the boat's
dinette doing a bit of planning 

2
00:00:07,920 --> 00:00:11,240
for our journey over the next 
few months, and as well as my 

3
00:00:11,240 --> 00:00:15,240
maps, one of the tools I use, as
many boaters do, is a website 

4
00:00:15,240 --> 00:00:19,880
called Canal Plan AC, which 
works out how long each journey 

5
00:00:19,880 --> 00:00:22,920
will probably take. 
It's an extraordinary resource 

6
00:00:23,320 --> 00:00:26,320
and a little while back I had a 
chat with the man behind it. 

7
00:00:26,920 --> 00:00:30,480
Welcome to this Canal Plan 
episode of the Water Rd. 

8
00:00:30,480 --> 00:00:46,200
All 
right, so I'm going to start by 

9
00:00:46,200 --> 00:00:50,560
clicking on Plan A Journey, and 
we spent the winter on the 

10
00:00:50,560 --> 00:00:54,600
Macclesfield Canal at Lime View,
so I'll put that in as my 

11
00:00:54,600 --> 00:01:01,080
starting point. 
And we need to be at the Quick 

12
00:01:01,080 --> 00:01:04,959
Boat Show in May, so I'll put 
that as our destination. 

13
00:01:09,600 --> 00:01:14,480
You can now plan says that's 124
miles, 1 1/2 furlongs and 66 

14
00:01:14,480 --> 00:01:19,800
locks, which will take 8 days, 
five hours and 54 minutes at 7 

15
00:01:19,800 --> 00:01:22,440
hours a day. 
Well, we don't do 7 hours a day 

16
00:01:22,440 --> 00:01:29,080
these days, so let's change that
to three hours a day, and that 

17
00:01:29,080 --> 00:01:33,720
means it'll take 20 days one. 
Hour and 50. 4 minutes, but 

18
00:01:33,720 --> 00:01:37,080
that's if we go direct and we 
quite fancy going via Worcester,

19
00:01:37,080 --> 00:01:40,320
which is in completely the wrong
direction, so let's put that in 

20
00:01:40,320 --> 00:01:48,680
as a via point. 
And that's now 179 and a bit 

21
00:01:48,680 --> 00:01:53,640
miles and 215 logs, which will 
take just over 35 days. 

22
00:01:53,880 --> 00:01:56,800
So that's taking us down onto 
the Trent of Mersey, then the 

23
00:01:56,800 --> 00:01:59,800
Staffs in Worcester and then the
River Severn, assuming it's not 

24
00:01:59,800 --> 00:02:02,560
in flood and Canal Plan 
helpfully gives me a list of 

25
00:02:02,560 --> 00:02:04,480
possible overnight mooring 
spots. 

26
00:02:05,080 --> 00:02:08,280
Anyway, as you can imagine, it's
possible to spend hours working 

27
00:02:08,280 --> 00:02:10,520
out which route might fit your 
schedule. 

28
00:02:11,320 --> 00:02:14,960
Now the man behind Canal Plan is
Nick Attie and I happened to 

29
00:02:14,960 --> 00:02:18,240
bump into him a little while 
back and began by asking him. 

30
00:02:18,240 --> 00:02:20,040
How the website? 
Had begun. 

31
00:02:21,200 --> 00:02:27,360
So the whole thing started ages 
ago in the 1980s when my brother

32
00:02:27,400 --> 00:02:32,000
was doing a computer studies O 
level and we did a very, very 

33
00:02:32,000 --> 00:02:34,920
simple planner. 
It was like one of these simple 

34
00:02:34,920 --> 00:02:37,640
route maps you can get and you 
just had a code number for each 

35
00:02:37,640 --> 00:02:38,920
junction. 
So it did no planning. 

36
00:02:38,920 --> 00:02:41,720
You just said from here to here 
and here to here and it told you

37
00:02:41,720 --> 00:02:44,880
how many miles and locks it was.
And it just grew from that. 

38
00:02:44,880 --> 00:02:49,000
So I just started writing these 
for fun as a hobby programming 

39
00:02:49,160 --> 00:02:51,480
way before there was the 
Internet or anything, and we 

40
00:02:51,480 --> 00:02:54,360
just used it for our own use. 
But when the Internet came 

41
00:02:54,360 --> 00:02:57,640
along, there was the opportunity
to basically let other people 

42
00:02:57,640 --> 00:02:59,240
use it. 
And why not? 

43
00:02:59,920 --> 00:03:03,560
And a friend of a friend, 
because this was before when 

44
00:03:03,560 --> 00:03:05,000
most people were just on dial 
up. 

45
00:03:05,320 --> 00:03:08,840
A friend of a friend living in 
America had a permanent young 

46
00:03:08,840 --> 00:03:10,960
computer and offered to host it 
for me. 

47
00:03:11,280 --> 00:03:14,120
And it was running like that out
of his, out of an old computer 

48
00:03:14,120 --> 00:03:18,720
in New York for several years. 
And it's just kept growing. 

49
00:03:18,840 --> 00:03:22,120
And you know, people come up 
with ideas, we come up with 

50
00:03:22,120 --> 00:03:22,760
things. 
It's. 

51
00:03:23,520 --> 00:03:25,000
And there you go. 
Really. 

52
00:03:25,440 --> 00:03:29,040
I mean the database of points on
the canal system that you've got

53
00:03:29,040 --> 00:03:31,040
on there. 
Must be absolutely massive. 

54
00:03:31,040 --> 00:03:32,560
Because you've got absolutely 
everything, haven't? 

55
00:03:32,560 --> 00:03:33,960
You, yes. 
And again, that's one of one of 

56
00:03:33,960 --> 00:03:37,200
the big changes. 
I'm one of the things that 

57
00:03:37,200 --> 00:03:40,560
really changed the site was 
stealing. 

58
00:03:40,720 --> 00:03:44,320
Stealing an idea from the sort 
of the Wikipedia approach and 

59
00:03:44,320 --> 00:03:47,640
letting people edit it. 
Because frankly, adding data 

60
00:03:47,960 --> 00:03:50,800
isn't what excites me. 
Writing the programming is what 

61
00:03:50,800 --> 00:03:53,800
excites me. 
So writing codes that other 

62
00:03:53,800 --> 00:03:57,920
people can add places and adjust
it and add facilities and things

63
00:03:57,920 --> 00:04:02,080
is meant that other people who 
like doing that can do that. 

64
00:04:02,080 --> 00:04:04,480
People can travel around and 
slowly but surely we're 

65
00:04:04,480 --> 00:04:07,680
collecting information on 
mooring places and where you can

66
00:04:07,680 --> 00:04:10,000
get on and off the towpath and 
things like that. 

67
00:04:11,000 --> 00:04:13,600
Recently put a whole new thing 
in which has started trying to 

68
00:04:13,600 --> 00:04:17,160
build up a database of shops and
pubs and places like that, which

69
00:04:17,160 --> 00:04:18,800
again, it just needs people to 
edit it. 

70
00:04:18,800 --> 00:04:22,960
But we're getting that, yeah. 
So what sort of size is that 

71
00:04:22,960 --> 00:04:25,240
database then? 
I mean, how many places do you 

72
00:04:25,240 --> 00:04:29,000
know on the canal system? 
Well, do I know what does the 

73
00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:32,600
programme know? 
I mean, I mean, I, I, I've 

74
00:04:32,600 --> 00:04:36,640
boated, I've boated since the 
80s and I, I, when people, when 

75
00:04:36,640 --> 00:04:38,680
I meet somebody and they say 
they're from such a place. 

76
00:04:38,880 --> 00:04:41,040
If it's somewhere near a canal, 
I've heard of it. 

77
00:04:41,040 --> 00:04:44,440
If not, I haven't. 
But the actual it's actually on 

78
00:04:44,440 --> 00:04:47,960
the home page has a tiny little 
statistics bit and it tells you 

79
00:04:47,960 --> 00:04:50,920
how many places are actually in 
the database and only water 

80
00:04:51,040 --> 00:04:53,680
because of course it's expanded 
to the to other countries as 

81
00:04:53,680 --> 00:04:54,800
well. 
I mean, it doesn't get the same 

82
00:04:54,800 --> 00:04:56,400
level of usage, but you can 
plant. 

83
00:04:56,400 --> 00:04:58,400
You can. 
It's got, it's got most of the 

84
00:04:58,400 --> 00:05:01,640
European waterways and a good 
chunk of the North American ones

85
00:05:01,640 --> 00:05:04,120
in there as well. 
Ohh And Australia, yes, well, 

86
00:05:04,120 --> 00:05:06,960
somebody fancied the idea of 
adding Australia and why not? 

87
00:05:06,960 --> 00:05:09,120
And particularly once you've 
said, well, we can actually have

88
00:05:09,120 --> 00:05:14,200
two separate things, then sort 
of two separate zones, then 

89
00:05:14,200 --> 00:05:16,280
three zones or 4 zones. 
I mean, it's no different 

90
00:05:16,280 --> 00:05:17,680
really. 
That's a great thing with, with 

91
00:05:17,680 --> 00:05:20,160
software, once you've got it 
working, doubling it and 

92
00:05:20,160 --> 00:05:22,760
increasing it. 
And luckily, as things have come

93
00:05:22,760 --> 00:05:25,840
along and new ideas have come 
along, the computers have got 

94
00:05:25,840 --> 00:05:28,920
more powerful and the memory's 
got cheaper and the disc space 

95
00:05:28,920 --> 00:05:31,720
has got cheaper and the Internet
connectivity's got better. 

96
00:05:31,920 --> 00:05:34,080
So you can keep pace with it and
you can go from what was 

97
00:05:34,080 --> 00:05:36,760
basically taxed to lots and lots
of photos. 

98
00:05:36,760 --> 00:05:39,960
I mean, the number of photos on 
there, people add photos every 

99
00:05:39,960 --> 00:05:42,240
day to it. 
That's the biggest, the biggest 

100
00:05:42,240 --> 00:05:45,000
thing people wanted to do and 
again it was a bit of a fiddles 

101
00:05:45,000 --> 00:05:48,160
making that, but once I've made 
it I just sit back and let it 

102
00:05:48,160 --> 00:05:49,840
happen. 
One of the things that people 

103
00:05:50,120 --> 00:05:51,840
use it most for. 
Is. 

104
00:05:52,040 --> 00:05:55,680
Figuring out how long it's going
to take to get from A to B and 

105
00:05:55,840 --> 00:05:59,480
you put the places in canal plan
and it tells you so how does all

106
00:05:59,480 --> 00:06:03,000
of that work? 
Deep down it uses something 

107
00:06:03,000 --> 00:06:05,600
called Dykstra's algorithm, 
which if you read books on 

108
00:06:05,600 --> 00:06:10,960
computers, science and things is
is the an algorithm to find the 

109
00:06:10,960 --> 00:06:14,200
shortest route through what 
computer scientists call a 

110
00:06:14,200 --> 00:06:18,320
graph, which is just dots and 
lines between the dots. 

111
00:06:18,320 --> 00:06:21,400
And that's all that's inside it.
All that's inside it is an 

112
00:06:21,400 --> 00:06:25,200
enormous list of places, an 
enormous list of things that say

113
00:06:25,320 --> 00:06:28,720
this place is connected to this 
place and it's that far. 

114
00:06:29,360 --> 00:06:32,440
And there's perhaps a lock along
the way, or this place is a 

115
00:06:32,440 --> 00:06:35,640
lock. 
And then it just runs right 

116
00:06:35,640 --> 00:06:40,760
across the network using your 
settings to calculate how much 

117
00:06:40,760 --> 00:06:43,840
effort it needs to do each 
little link and then works out 

118
00:06:43,840 --> 00:06:46,800
which one is the shortest. 
And that just happens magically 

119
00:06:46,800 --> 00:06:50,200
in the background really is the 
computer it first ran on would 

120
00:06:50,200 --> 00:06:52,680
just fall over if you tried to 
run it on the size of the 

121
00:06:52,680 --> 00:06:56,200
database now, because so many 
more places have been added. 

122
00:06:56,200 --> 00:06:58,640
So you know, it doesn't just 
connect when you know, we're 

123
00:06:58,640 --> 00:07:01,880
sitting here in Market Drayton. 
It would have had Market Drayton

124
00:07:01,880 --> 00:07:04,080
and probably Ordlem Wharf in at 
1 stage. 

125
00:07:04,080 --> 00:07:07,000
Now you know, it's got every 
bridge along the way and every 

126
00:07:07,000 --> 00:07:10,480
lock and a few extra things in 
between. 

127
00:07:10,480 --> 00:07:14,760
So most of the links are just 
going down adding them up. 

128
00:07:15,120 --> 00:07:17,080
And of course, you can make it 
really quite complicated by 

129
00:07:17,080 --> 00:07:19,840
putting lots of via points in as
well. 

130
00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:22,640
You can. 
It actually calculates it in 

131
00:07:22,640 --> 00:07:24,560
each stage. 
So you need to. 

132
00:07:24,960 --> 00:07:27,640
If you're turning a corner, you 
need to tell it which way you're

133
00:07:27,640 --> 00:07:28,960
going then really, don't you? 
Well. 

134
00:07:29,320 --> 00:07:31,600
It actually almost works the 
other way round, which is why 

135
00:07:31,600 --> 00:07:34,560
what's the furthest place I can 
get to comes almost for free. 

136
00:07:34,720 --> 00:07:36,640
What it actually does. 
If you say, right, I'm going 

137
00:07:36,640 --> 00:07:40,800
from here, it will calculate how
long it will take you with your 

138
00:07:40,800 --> 00:07:44,760
current set of choices to every 
single point on the whole 

139
00:07:44,760 --> 00:07:48,160
connected system and then pick 
the one of them that's where you

140
00:07:48,200 --> 00:07:51,040
actually want to go to because 
that's just the way the software

141
00:07:51,040 --> 00:07:53,120
works. 
But that also means like you can

142
00:07:53,120 --> 00:07:55,120
easily say, well, how far can I 
go in a week? 

143
00:07:55,120 --> 00:07:58,040
Because it's already done that. 
So what's the future for a canal

144
00:07:58,040 --> 00:07:59,440
plan then? 
Have you got plans for it? 

145
00:07:59,880 --> 00:08:01,480
Well, there's an endless list of
things. 

146
00:08:01,480 --> 00:08:03,360
I mean, it basically does 
everything. 

147
00:08:03,680 --> 00:08:05,000
There's an endless list of 
things. 

148
00:08:05,000 --> 00:08:08,880
One of the things I want to do 
without being more, without 

149
00:08:08,880 --> 00:08:11,160
being too morbid or something, 
is I want to protect it. 

150
00:08:11,160 --> 00:08:14,200
I want it to keep going and 
whenever I want to retire from 

151
00:08:14,200 --> 00:08:18,040
it, so I want to actually 
package it up, document it, put 

152
00:08:18,040 --> 00:08:21,000
it up on a software site and 
hopefully, you know, make it 

153
00:08:21,000 --> 00:08:23,880
available to other people so 
it's so it won't disappear when 

154
00:08:23,880 --> 00:08:26,440
I do. 
So how much of your time does it

155
00:08:26,440 --> 00:08:29,440
take up? 
Not as much as it did a few 

156
00:08:29,440 --> 00:08:31,800
hours a week. 
At the moment we get automatic 

157
00:08:31,800 --> 00:08:34,760
reports when things go wrong. 
So checking what's gone wrong, 

158
00:08:35,000 --> 00:08:39,240
looking at suggestions people 
have made, fixing bets, dealing 

159
00:08:39,240 --> 00:08:41,600
with where something else on the
Internet changes. 

160
00:08:41,600 --> 00:08:43,320
I mean, that's the problem is 
use more and more of the 

161
00:08:43,320 --> 00:08:45,360
resources. 
Other things change underneath 

162
00:08:45,360 --> 00:08:47,040
you and things suddenly stop 
working. 

163
00:08:47,040 --> 00:08:50,400
So yeah, a few hours a week. 
I mean, it must be the most 

164
00:08:50,400 --> 00:08:52,720
visited canal website. 
I mean, did you ever think that 

165
00:08:52,720 --> 00:08:53,960
was going to happen when you 
said it? 

166
00:08:54,000 --> 00:08:56,160
I didn't. 
I mean, when it really blew me 

167
00:08:56,160 --> 00:08:59,480
away was when Waterways World 
suddenly ran a little article on

168
00:08:59,480 --> 00:09:02,520
it in 2002. 
Something like that. 

169
00:09:02,880 --> 00:09:05,360
No, I mean, I never, I never 
expected this on the fair. 

170
00:09:05,360 --> 00:09:06,760
I mean, it's lovely to bump into
people. 

171
00:09:07,000 --> 00:09:11,160
The last time we were out to, 
about a month ago, well, there 

172
00:09:11,160 --> 00:09:14,280
was a higher boat coming up, 
Audlem, and it turned out they'd

173
00:09:14,280 --> 00:09:17,000
used it to work everything out. 
And as long as you use it the 

174
00:09:17,000 --> 00:09:20,600
right way, that's brilliant. 
Occasionally you get people who 

175
00:09:20,600 --> 00:09:25,240
really want to trust it to tell 
them what to do when it isn't 

176
00:09:25,240 --> 00:09:28,720
there to tell you what to do. 
It's there to give you the 

177
00:09:28,720 --> 00:09:31,200
information you need so you can 
decide what to do, because 

178
00:09:31,200 --> 00:09:33,680
that's what boating's all about.
It's all about doing your own 

179
00:09:33,680 --> 00:09:36,760
thing. 
So if it tells you should be, 

180
00:09:36,760 --> 00:09:38,880
you know, you're going from here
from Market Drayton again, it 

181
00:09:38,880 --> 00:09:41,880
says, well, you'll be nozzle or 
maybe you will and that's great.

182
00:09:42,120 --> 00:09:46,040
But if not, if you, if you only 
get to Norbury, well, that's OK.

183
00:09:46,040 --> 00:09:48,760
You know, you need to go a 
little bit more the next day and

184
00:09:48,840 --> 00:09:51,240
that's that's how I've always 
intended it to be used. 

185
00:09:51,960 --> 00:09:54,920
Well, on behalf of all boaters, 
thank you for doing it. 

186
00:09:55,440 --> 00:09:56,080
Thanks. 
Lovely. 

187
00:09:56,080 --> 00:09:57,720
Thank you. 
No, it's really nice to meet, to

188
00:09:57,720 --> 00:10:00,560
meet fans because you know, you 
sit there, you sit at your 

189
00:10:00,560 --> 00:10:03,600
computer, you're all locked away
in a dark room and you, as you 

190
00:10:03,600 --> 00:10:05,720
say, it probably is very 
popular, but you don't really 

191
00:10:05,720 --> 00:10:08,080
know. 
So it's lovely to hear to hear 

192
00:10:08,080 --> 00:10:08,800
that. 
So thank you. 

193
00:10:11,440 --> 00:10:14,320
Well, thanks to Nick Attie for 
that fascinating interview. 

194
00:10:14,720 --> 00:10:17,440
And in case you were wondering, 
as I look at the homepage now, 

195
00:10:17,760 --> 00:10:23,720
Canal Plan tells me that the 
database contains 27,979 places 

196
00:10:24,080 --> 00:10:31,360
on 914 waterways totalling 
32,195 miles, and there are 

197
00:10:31,360 --> 00:10:37,160
41,569 photos submitted by 682 
people. 

198
00:10:37,520 --> 00:10:40,680
All those numbers I'm sure will 
have gone up by the time you 

199
00:10:40,680 --> 00:10:46,720
hear this. 
And that's all for. 

200
00:10:46,720 --> 00:10:49,960
This edition of The Water Rd The
Podcast is produced and 

201
00:10:49,960 --> 00:10:53,840
presented by me, Adam Porter. 
If you haven't yet subscribed or

202
00:10:53,840 --> 00:10:56,800
followed us, please click that 
button and then you'll be 

203
00:10:56,800 --> 00:10:58,800
alerted when episodes are 
released. 

204
00:10:59,160 --> 00:11:02,640
And don't forget that all the 
episodes in series one are all 

205
00:11:02,640 --> 00:11:06,400
still available to listen to. 
Thank you for listening to The 

206
00:11:06,400 --> 00:11:06,960
Water Rd.