Regional Transportation System Usage Analysis: Using Big Data to Answer Big Questions 

Date and Time: 8/29/2022
Location: North Star

Presenter: Erica Cole, Transportation Planner, National Park Service

  

 

 

PRESENTATION DESCRIPTION

Each year, there are an estimated 870 million visits to federal lands (Leggit et al 2017). This recreational and tourism travel driven by demand for access to parks and public lands continues to increase in urban and rural areas throughout the country, placing new and changing demands (traffic congestion, air pollution, etc) on transportation systems. Managing this travel demand has been increasingly challenging and has put stress on not only the public lands themselves, but also on the gateway communities that provide access to them. The National Park Service (NPS) is exploring innovative and emerging technologies to collect data and manage lands to address these challenges.

Mobile device data is increasingly being used for a variety of transportation planning purposes. As various mobile devices have added increasing accurate location data, they have the potential to provide data about travel patterns that previously could only be estimated using more expensive and time consuming surveys. The National Park Service is piloting use of this innovative and emerging data collection technology in the state of Colorado to understand how NPS visitors are using regional transportation networks to access national park units along with analyzing visitor movements within park units. This study answers questions about:
* visitor home locations,
* where visitors enter the study area and how they move through the study area,
* dwell times and congestion in gateway communities and parks,
* travel time between parks and within a park between key visitor experience sites.

This regional transportation system usage analysis project is being done in conjunction with a NPS regional long range transportation plan update to inform strategies in the visitor experience and mobility, access, and connectivity goals. The findings are also valuable to park managers to inform future management and engagement with gateway communities.

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY

Erica Cole, Transportation Planner
National Park Service, Alternative Transportation Program, Park Facility Management Division

Erica Cole has been with the National Park Service since 2009. She has a decade of transportation planning experience with the agency at regional and national levels working on complex park planning and program and policy development strategies. Erica focuses on supporting parks and programs where there is a confluence of transportation and visitor use issues along with appropriately applying emerging data collection techniques in context sensitive environments.

Recently, Erica is leading a multidisciplinary workgroup that supports the NPS’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Transportation Grants implementation strategy. Erica holds a Dual Master’s Degree in Urban & Regional Planning and Business Administration from the University of Colorado Denver and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Western Kentucky University.