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Traffic Monitoring in Recreational Areas
A Successful Practitioner's Handbook

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Next Steps

Two fundamental opportunities emerged as a result of this investigation related to resource/data sharing and the pivotal role of FHWA's Office of Federal Lands Highway in improving/lending consistency to traffic monitoring in recreational lands.

In the near term, opportunities exist to share both resources and data among agencies responsible for recreational traffic monitoring. Interagency agreements may help to facilitate the joint installation and maintenance of traffic monitoring equipment (e.g., if a counter fails, the agency responsible for maintenance must respond in a timely manner to minimize the impact to all agencies reliant upon the data). Dual derivation methods were proposed to increase data quantity for both traffic and visitation applications. For example traffic monitoring data could be more widely used to estimate visitation based on assumed vehicle occupancies, and visitation data that is derived from sources other than traffic counts (e.g., surveys, turn-styles, etc.) can be used to estimate traffic volumes, again assuming average vehicle occupancy. Attaching a quality report to data would allow data users to determine whether the data is sufficient for their intended application; the challenge lies in accurately determining the data quality.

For longer-term efforts, FHWA's Office of Federal Lands Highway should play a key role in facilitating and supporting improvements to recreational traffic monitoring among diverse partners. Agencies tasked with managing recreational areas differ in their underlying mission, priorities, and the nature and extent of their jurisdictional land areas and associated roadway network. A lack of understanding of and possible inconsistencies within each agency's mission results in uncertainties regarding what data needs to be collected and reported. FHWA's Office of Federal Lands Highway can facilitate and encourage improved understanding and awareness within and among partner agencies, leading to improvements and greater consistency in recreational traffic monitoring. A four-stage approach was recommended to initiate improvements to existing traffic monitoring in recreational lands:

• Stage 1 - Continuous Counts. Develop guidelines that support the selection of continuous count locations based on the number of access points, distance to nearest ATR, etc. and determine when the installation of a new continuous count station may be warranted (i.e., instead of "massaging" data from distant ATR).
• Stage 2 - Coverage Counts. Develop guidelines that describe the location, scheduling, and duration of short- duration coverage counts.
• Stage 3 - Data Analysis. Consider the development/use of predictive models that distribute traffic over the network to minimize required traffic data collection, as well as opportunities for data sharing/integration.
• Stage 4 - Special Spot Studies. Develop guidelines that describe when isolated special studies are appropriate.
• Stage 5 - Store Traffic Data. Store traffic data in an easily-accessible database that can easily be integrated with other management systems.

In addition to facilitating longer-term development efforts, FHWA's Office of Federal Lands Highway should support these efforts financially. Under traditional scenarios, the Federal Government is able to allocate Federal funds to the States for performance of certain duties under specified guidelines, with access to Federal funds being the "carrot" through which States participate. For the management of recreational lands, no such hierarchy exists - Federal agencies must find ways to cooperate with other Federal agencies. FHWA's Office of Federal Lands Highway can act as a catalyst for identifying and securing funds to support multi-agency efforts focused on improving/lending consistency to traffic monitoring in recreational areas.

Through this investigation, the unique characteristics of participating agencies and the lands under their jurisdiction became evident. Despite the motivation towards more consistent recreational traffic monitoring, any proposed changes to existing practices cannot be a "one size fits all" approach. It must remain flexible to address the respective differences in underlying mission, priorities, and jurisdictional nature and extent of the land areas among the agencies tasked with managing recreational areas.

 

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