Understanding Your Trail Users: Enhancing Trail Management Using Location Intelligence

Using anonymized mobility data via location intelligence technologies to look at park and trail usage.

Presented by:

• Mike Passo, Executive Director, American Trails
• Breece Robertson, Director of Partnerships and Strategy, Center for Geospatial Solutions, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
• Umang Shah, Director of Product, Resilient Solutions 21 (RS21)

How well do you know your trail users? Common methodologies for calculating visits and general trail usage require manual surveys and the physical placement of sensors. This presentation shares how new movement and location intelligence technologies can provide trail agencies, builders, and planners with better information about where people access trails, when they’re most likely to visit, how many times they return, and general characteristics (like income, race, ethnicity, social vulnerability, distance from home, etc.) of visitors.

While trails and green spaces are built and maintained to serve nearby communities, it is often difficult to plan amenities, ensure equitable use, measure the impact of special events, compare visitor metrics with similar parks, measure the impact of marketing initiatives and justify and evaluate grants for funding using anonymized location data and insights regarding trail users. Better data is the first step to making trails and recreational areas more accessible, inclusive, and fun for the people who use them.

The presenters will share information about some new technology intended to improve trail analysis. Join this webinar to dive into use cases and learn what innovative methods have been used by organizations and agencies seeking to improve public trails.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand general definitions about anonymized mobility and location data, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and relevant metrics (like density and dwell time) and how these analytics are being applied to trails, parks, and public green spaces.
• Understand how to use movement and location intelligence to augment your surveys and sensor data on trail use and visitors.
• Understand how occupancy models support planning, maintenance, and trail design efforts.