Preparing for the Implementation of a Vehicle Reservation System in Acadia National Park

Introduction:

Due to vehicle congestion becoming an issue in recent years throughout Acadia National Park, the park is implementing a vehicle reservation system. To properly implement the system, the park required additional data on vehicle behavior in the Ocean Drive corridor. Our project entailed gathering the necessary data by utilizing trail cameras to observe vehicle parking patterns in the parking lot along Ocean Drive. By analyzing these images, we were able to accurately determine the average length of stay in the individual parking lots as well as the average length of stay in the Ocean Drive corridor as a whole. With this data, in addition to refinements to the policies of the reservation system which we developed, Acadia National Park should be better equipped to successfully implement their parking reservation system.