Lagpunkts were convenient to decrease the time and hassle of transport of inmates to remote job sites.
[3] Many camps, especially operating logging had big number of lagpunkts to man work in a particular areas.
Their lifetime also varied greatly: some existed from 1920s into 1980s (when were converted into prisons or colonies), while others lasted for a summer season only or, keeping the number, moved to another location.
[2] Anne Appelbaum remarks that most descriptions of Gulag geography report about 500 locations, but in fact there was much more than that: many major camps had from dozens to hundreds smaller sub-units, which are close to impossible to count.
[2] There were other terms for temporary job locations of labor camp: kolonna ("column", in reference of "worker columns' of a labor army) a lagpunkt for road construction; komandirovka (work trip; modern translation of the term: business trip); distantsiya ("distance"), for railroad construction camp detachments.