Presence patroling is what my UNMO (UN military Observers) colleages are doing everyday. It is going out, showing to the people that you are here, that you can come to see them and that you are capable to speak to them.
In practice, because it's the UN, it doesn't bring anything concrete part from the fact that you show you are mobile and there are no "no go areas".
The problem for us is that we have to be with host nation military observers. Most of the people are affraid of them or, when not affraid, do not have the time to speak with us.
On paper, it's a nice idea. In reallity we collect intelligence and data about the humanitarian situation and the people needs. But as the UN system is very much disfunctional in Sudan, once you have collected the info you cannot pass it. Well, it's not true, you pass it and then no one act.

In DRC, the UN came with a solution to that. They integrated the NGO information network through OCHA. Everyday, after approval of the report, it was distributed to the NGOs.
In a COIN people centric approach, this system had the advantage that the military could at least oserve if the NGO were doing something with the data.
The other advantage was, in DRC, that military and NGO were integrated at funding level. So the NGO did not have the feeling they were used by military.

Presence patrolling is useful if there are some benefits for the people who take the risk to speak with the soldiers. Otherwise you end up with low quality information gathering and it's much quicker to straight go to the NGOs to know what is going on.