Parks and People: Managing Outdoor Recreation at Acadia National Park

25. Assessing the Effectiveness of Intelligent Transportation System Technology to Manage Visitor Use at Acadia National Park

25 Assessing the Effectiveness of Intelligent Transportation SystemTechnology to ManageVisitor Use at Acadia National Park Intelligent Transportation Systems (its) are a combination of information technologies applied to the management of ground transportation and the provision of travel information to outdoor recreation visitors (Sheldon 1997). An its can include many different technologies but those most relevant to parks and outdoor recreation are route guidance, traveler information , automated vehicle-location, fleet management, and automated trafficmanagement systems (Sheldon 1997). The movement of park visitors via ground transportation systems is becoming more challenging as use levels increase. its technologies are viewed as potentially important since they can help visitors have safer, faster, and more enjoyable trips. Because of the mix of public and private lands on mdi, it is essential that the nps work cooperatively with the surrounding communities to maintain a high-quality experience for visitors. In the Acadia National Park General Management Plan, visitor and automobile congestion are identified as areas that need to be addressed in order to maintain the quality of the visitor experience. Also stressed is the need to work with surrounding communities to explore alternative methods for visitors to enter the park because of visitor safety issues resulting from large numbers of cars parked on the sides of roads. A general survey of Acadia visitors also highlighted the problem of congestion ; the three things that respondents liked least about their visit were (1) crowds, (2) traffic, and (3) congested parking (Littlejohn 1999). (This study is described more fully in chapter 1.) As part of a solution to relieve traffic congestion problems, the nps iden-  This chapter is an edited version of the following paper: John Daigle and Carole Zimmerman , “The Convergence of Transportation, Information Technology, and Visitor Experience at Acadia National Park,” Journal of Travel Research 43, no. 2 (2004): 151–160. M A N A G E M E N T  tified public transportation as the preferred approach for both protecting park resources and providing a high-quality visitor experience (National Park Service, 1992). In 1999, the nps, with the help of several state and federal government agencies, the nonprofit organization Friends of Acadia, and surrounding communities on mdi, introduced the Island Explorer bus. This alternative transportation system used within the park and more broadly on mdi was meant to address the congestion caused by automobiles (Daigle and Lee 2000). From late June through early September of the first season, the buses carried 142,260 passengers over six routes through the park and surrounding mdi towns. The success of the service in its first season led to expansion in the summer of 2000. The Island Explorer received an additional boost in 2002 with a partnership formed with L.L. Bean Company. This partnership involves a $1 million endowment that will help the bus service expand to meet growing demand and enable extension of bus operation into a growing off-peak fall tourist season. ITS TECHNOLOGY AT ACADIA The U.S. Department of Interior, the parent agency of the nps, and the U.S. Department of Transportation entered into a memorandum of understanding in 1997 to work together to address the problems of transportation in national parks. In 1999, Acadia was chosen for a test to determine the effectiveness of its in helping to solve park transportation problems. During the summer of 2002, its technologies were installed, with many components intended to enhance the operation of the Island Explorer bus system. They included two-way voice communications, automatic vehicle location, electronic bus-departure signs, automated annunciators on-board buses, and automatic passenger counters. its traffic-management components within the park included parking lot monitoring and traffic volume recorders at park entrances. These technologies were deployed with the expectation they would have measurable impacts in the form of benefits realized by visitors (e.g., tourists’ satisfaction with their visit), organizations (e.g., efficiency of Island Explorer operations), or society at large (e.g., reduce the number of traffic accidents) (Zimmerman, Coleman, and Daigle 2003). Displays of traveler information utilized real-time data from the its components. For example, automatic vehicle-location (avl) technologies were used with Island Explorer buses to calculate the real-time arrival and A S S E S S I N G T H E E F F E C T I V E N E S S O F I T S T E C H N O L O G Y  departure...