Trail Users Research Articles

九州自然歩道の利用者特性と環境意識 訪問者を対象とした現地実施・現地記入のアンケート調査を基に

九州自然歩道の利用者特性と環境意識 訪問者を対象とした現地実施・現地記入のアンケート調査を基に

Monitoring Trail Traffic in the Cincinnati Metropolitan Region, Ohio

Recreation managers need information about use of multiuse trails to manage systems effectively. This research note illustrates how traffic monitoring procedures can be adapted for trail monitoring and describes variation in trail traffic across the tri-state, 10-county Cincinnati Metropolitan Region, Ohio. Infrared sensors were used to monitor trail traffic at 78 locations along 15 trail corridors in 2017. Data were obtained from 10 permanent monitoring stations. Short-duration (7-day) samples were completed at 68 locations. Across 78 trail segments, annual average daily trail traffic ranged from 8 to 1,897. Trail users traveled approximately 11.1 million miles over 136 miles of the network. Analyses of traffic patterns indicate trails were used mostly for recreation such as cycling and walking and less for commuting. Recreation managers can use results to track trends and prioritize investments in trail development, safety, and maintenance. Partnerships to implement trail traffic monitoring can be replicated in other regions.Subscribe to JPRA

Patterns and correlates of urban trail use: Evidence from the Cincinnati metropolitan area

Transportation, parks, and health organizations are collaborating to develop multiuse trail networks that meet the needs of metropolitan residents for utilitarian travel, recreation, and fitness. This paper describes how trails are used and explores correlates of trail use in the Greater Cincinnati region. Drawing on a systematic survey of users, we use ordinary probit and spatial models to explore the effects of socio-demographics, trip characteristics, attitudes, and the built environment, on recreational and utilitarian use. Most (89%) respondents report using trails for recreation; just 8.8% say they use trails for utilitarian purposes. Ordinary probit models show that users reporting recreational use are significantly more likely to be female, have incomes greater than $120,000, and travel longer distances on trails, but less likely to bike or walk to access trails. Transit connectivity is negatively correlated with recreational use. Trail users reporting utilitarian purposes are disproportionately male, significantly less likely to have incomes greater than $120,000, and more likely to take short trips on trails and to access trails by cycling or walking. They say they would commute more by cycling if connectivity were improved. Spatial probit model indicates negative spatial relationships among recreational users, implying the absence of a spatially-based common culture of trail use. Trail planners in this region can use these findings to strengthen the planning and design of trail networks and to meet the needs of different users. Given the finding most trail use is for recreational purposes, additional studies of the needs of utilitarian users are warranted.

Racial/ethnic and educational differences in perceptions and use of a new urban trail

ABSTRACT Objectives: Obesity and its associated health risks are on the rise throughout the US due, in part, to an overall decline in physical activity. Although public green spaces, and in particular trails, show promise as population-level interventions to promote physical activity among adults, these amenities may have disparate impacts across racial/ethnic and socioeconomic groups within a community. Design: This cross-sectional study employed an intercept survey of users of a newly opened $95 million rail-to-trail development in Chicago, IL, immediately after its opening and one year later to examine differences by race/ethnicity and educational attainment in trail use behaviors, motivations for trail use, safety concerns, and change in physical activity attributed to the trail. Results: Although the overall impact of the trail was positive, Latino users were more likely to report frequent use (4+ times/week), health motivations for using the trail, and increased physical activity attributed to the trail. However, Latino users were also more likely to indicate safety concerns and less likely to use areas of the trail in predominately white communities, even after controlling for community of residence. The least educated trail users frequented fewer trail areas and were less likely to indicate health motivations for trail use. Conclusions: Although urban trails represent an opportunity for cost-effective community-wide health promotion, they may not benefit all groups equally. Urban trails may have particularly promising benefits for Latino users, but safety concerns and the possibility of community racial segregation being replicated on trails should be addressed to maximize and sustain these benefits. Less educated residents in particular may not benefit from such projects as intended.

Measuring trail users’ perception of crowding in a peri-urban nature park: A best-worst scaling experiment

This paper evaluates the perception of crowding, its determinants and relationship with trail users’ experience in a peri-urban nature park. Existing crowding surveys rely heavily on a single-item 9-point crowding scale which was originally developed for backcountry areas. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was used to test the validity and reliability of this measure in detecting crowding issues and formulating visitor capacity limits. Low validity and reliability raised concerns about the applicability of this scale in similar frontcountry areas. Inability of this simple crowding measure to detect a visitor threshold brings to the fore its another important limitation – ignorance of the complexity of crowding phenomenon. The perception of crowding varies with various social, psychological and situational factors, and a best-worst scaling (BWS) experiment was designed to simultaneously evaluate different aspects of crowding in the Medvednica Nature Park, a peri-urban nature park near Zagreb, Croatia. The findings of BWS experiment revealed that occupancy of mountain huts, number of other hikers on the trail and amount of litter along the trail on average contributed most to the trail users’ sense of crowding. A latent class analysis identified a large heterogeneity in the perception of crowding; while one group of trail users (63%) was more disturbed by the direct social impacts, the others (37%) were more disturbed by the secondary impacts of other visitors, especially by the negative externalities from road traffic in the park. Older visitors had a greater tendency to primarily associate crowding with the environmental conditions. A higher impact of trail use level in the perception of crowding, younger age and more frequent use were associated with a more negative evaluation of crowding. The park management should closely monitor road traffic in the park and visitor activity on highly used trails, especially on those popular among younger trail users.

Improvement Plan of Forest Trail Management through Consciousness Analysis of Forest Trail User

Improvement Plan of Forest Trail Management through Consciousness Analysis of Forest Trail User

도보길 이용목적 및 선택요인 조사연구

This research aimed to identify walking trails' purpose of its use and the factors that influence the selection. For this, a survey targeting the walking trail users was conducted in 2016 to question the research aim stated above. The mean number of walking trail usage in a month was 2.51 times and the duration of use ranged from one to ten hours, with the average of 2.5 hours. The main reason for the usage was to maintain physical health and the following was for mental relaxation, thus showing more than 90% of the people concerned with physical and mental health. Walking trails near the residences had the greatest percentage and trails that include mountains, rivers, seas and lakes were the following. Trails near historical locations or countryside showed a lower percentage. The choices showed relevance to the proximity as a standard of selection. The next highest percentage was the convenience of transportation. Additionally, people that access the trails three or more times were inclined to be influenced by the installation of exercising equipment. The aspect of facilities showed that the place for relaxation was a significant selection factor such as bathrooms for 20s to 30s and exercising equipments for people older than 50. To access the walking trails, people reach it by automobiles, public transport, walking and bicycles and out of these, automobiles had the highest percentage.

Mapping the relationships between trail conditions and experiential elements of long-distance hiking

Trail users that experience acceptable social and ecological conditions are more likely to act as trail stewards, exhibit proper trail etiquette, and use low-impact practices. However, the relationships between specific trail conditions and experiential elements of long-distance hiking are not well understood. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to identify how trail conditions influence particular elements of the long-distance hiking experience. The researchers used a mixed-methods approach involving semi-structured interviews (n = 17), quantitative questionnaires (n = 336), ecological measurements of trail conditions (n = 21–5 km sections), and modified Recreation Suitability Mapping (RSM) techniques to quantify the relationships between five trail conditions (trail incision, muddiness, rugosity, trail width, and gradient) and four experiential elements of long-distance hiking (level of challenge, perceived impact to musculoskeletal system, valuation of tread aesthetics, and ability to maintain an ideal hiking pace). Quantified values were weighted, analyzed, and mapped using SPSS 22.0 and ArcMap 10.2.2. Significant differences exist in the scores and distributions of ecological measures across all sections, indicating that trail conditions vary significantly across sampled trail sections. Although, long-distance hikers felt all four experiential elements were important, tread aesthetics was ranked by 50.2% of sampled hikers as the most important experiential element to the overall experience. The resulting information after applying the weights suggests what particular type of experience is likely for each trail section considering the presence of trail conditions.

Accelerometer and GPS Analysis of Trail Use and Associations With Physical Activity.

Concurrent use of accelerometers and global positioning system (GPS) data can be used to quantify physical activity (PA) occurring on trails. This study examined associations of trail use with PA and sedentary behavior (SB) and quantified on trail PA using a combination of accelerometer and GPS data. Adults (N = 142) wore accelerometer and GPS units for 1-4 days. Trail use was defined as a minimum of 2 consecutive minutes occurring on a trail, based on GPS data. We examined associations between trail use and PA and SB. On trail minutes of light-intensity, moderate-intensity, and vigorous-intensity PA, and SB were quantified in 2 ways, using accelerometer counts only and with a combination of GPS speed and accelerometer data. Trail use was positively associated with total PA, moderate-intensity PA, and light-intensity PA (P < .05). On trail vigorous-intensity PA minutes were 346% higher when classified with the combination versus accelerometer only. Light-intensity PA, moderate-intensity PA, and SB minutes were 15%, 91%, and 85% lower with the combination, respectively. Adult trail users accumulated more PA on trail use days than on nontrail use days, indicating the importance of these facilities for supporting regular PA. The combination of GPS and accelerometer data for quantifying on trail activity may be more accurate than accelerometer data alone and is useful for classifying intensity of activities such as bicycling.

Thru-hiking the John Muir Trail as a modern pilgrimage: implications for natural resource management

ABSTRACTIn many religions, the simple act of walking from one point to another, sometimes over great distances, becomes a life-changing event, often undertaken only once in a lifetime at great financial and physical cost. In recent decades, walkers often label themselves or are labeled by others as pilgrims, and their walks parallel traditional religious pilgrimages such as the Hajj or the Camino de Santiago. In this article, we examine 26 travel blogs of thru-hikers (or intended thru-hikers) of the John Muir Trail in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, U.S.A., for elements of spirituality that correspond to discussions of religious pilgrimages. We also examine the ways that thru-hikers discuss management of the trail; like pilgrims on other trails, John Muir Trail (JMT) thru-hikers convey simultaneous annoyance and appreciation of rules that restrict behaviors on the popular trail. We contend that understanding a thru-hike of the JMT as a form of pilgrimage has important implications for natural resource management and can help wilderness managers better meet the needs of this type of trail user, one who crosses multiple administrative boundaries, often seeks a distinctive combination of comradery and solitude, and for whom a backcountry hike may be a transformative experience.

Greenway use and preferences in diverse urban communities: Implications for trail design and management

Greenways represent corridors of benefits with a unique capacity to contribute to sustainable urban development, yet more research is needed to understand the extent to which greenway-related benefits are realized and distributed across diverse populations and settings. Using intercept surveys of greenway users during summer 2015, our study explored use patterns and preferences along two trails traversing diverse neighborhoods: the Eastside Trail in Atlanta, GA (n = 505), and the Leon Creek Greenway in San Antonio, TX (n = 429). Descriptive statistics and regression-based analyses revealed that exercising and escaping the stress of city life were the top motivations for visiting both trails, and safety and security were rated as top concerns among visitors (particularly women and racial/ethnic minorities). On the urban Eastside Trail, where more users accessed the trail by foot or bicycle and engaged in a variety of trail-based activities, cultural benefits linked to social interaction and community connectivity were more widely acknowledged. On the suburban Leon Creek Greenway, where most visitors tended to travel longer distances to access the trail, typically for physically-active recreation, experiential benefits stemming from outdoor recreation in natural settings were more strongly recognized. Both trails attracted substantial numbers of racial/ethnic minorities, with Hispanics and other non-white users representing about 55% of Leon Creek Greenway and 32% of Eastside Trail visitors. Social and nature-based motivations were more common among these user groups. Planners and managers can utilize these results to identify strategies for maximizing greenway-related benefits among diverse groups of potential trail users.

Land degradation effects initiated by trail running events in an urban protected area of Hong Kong

AbstractTrail degradation is a common management problem in protected areas, especially those that accommodate high levels of trail users or organized sporting events. Trail running became popular in Hong Kong in the early 2000s, with a number of trail running events involving large numbers of runners organized in recent years. Although trail competitions are believed to produce very intense impacts on trails and their surrounding environments, limited research exists to quantify and characterize these impacts to inform policy and management responses. This study empirically examined and evaluated the impacts generated by a running competition on a remote trail in Hong Kong. Results indicated that a running competition can cause significant initial degradation on the trail. Although some degradation features (e.g., incision) can recover in 6 months, some negative effects (e.g., soil coarsening) can persist or worsen. It is recommended that trail running competitions should be regulated in protected areas in terms of both number of events and number of participants. Trail maintenance is crucially important for keeping the protected areas in good condition.

A Walk in the Woods: The Seneca Trail Garbology Study

This “garbology” study examined patterns in the type and location of discarded cultural material found on a popular hiking trail in order to determine: (1) what information the nature and placement of these waste materials could provide about trail users; and (2) whether conclusions could be drawn about collateral activities that trail users engaged in while hiking. The study determined that while the trail is used by a broad cross-section of age groups, the heaviest use is by relatively young adults, with evidence of comparatively equal use by both sexes. The most common collateral activity of hikers was beverage consumption, closely followed by tobacco use and the consumption of snack foods. The artifact distribution patterns suggest that trail users begin smoking and consuming beverages almost immediately after they start walking the trail but do not usually consume snack foods until they have reached at least the half-way point.

Photos, tweets, and trails: Are social media proxies for urban trail use?

Decision makers need information on the use of, and demand for, public recreation and transportation facilities. Innovations in monitoring technologies and diffusion of social media enable new approaches to estimation of demand. We assess the feasibility of using geo-tagged photographs uploaded to the image-sharing website Flickr and tweets from Twitter as proxy measures for urban trail use. We summarize geo-tagged Flickr uploads and tweets along 80 one-mile segments of the multiuse trail network in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and correlate results with previously published estimates of annual average daily trail traffic derived from infrared trail monitors. Although heat maps of Flickr images and tweets show some similarities with maps of variation in trail traffic, the correlation between photographs and trail traffic is moderately weak (0.43), and there is no meaningful statistical correlation between tweets and trail traffic. Use of a simple log-log bivariate regression to estimate trail traffic from photographs results in relatively high error. The predictor variables included in published demand models for the same trails explain roughly the same amount of variation in photo-derived use, but some of the neighborhood socio-demographic and built-environment independent variables have different effects. Taken together, these findings show that both Flickr images and tweets have limitations as proxies for demand for urban trails, and that neither can be used to develop valid, reliable estimates of trail use. These results differ from previously published results that indicate social media may be useful in assessing relative demand for recreational destinations. This difference may be because urban trails are used for multiple purposes, including routine commuting and shopping, and that trail users are less inclined to use social media on trips for these purposes.

Providing information to respondents in complex choice studies: A survey on recreational trail preferences in an urban nature park

This paper examined the recreational trail preferences of visitors in the Medvednica Nature Park, a protected forest area on the outskirts of the City of Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. A discrete choice experiment (DCE) was conducted to get the insight into relative importance of different resource, social and managerial conditions in the park. Accounting for multiple site conditions requires a relatively large number of choice attributes, which may impose too high cognitive burden on respondents. On the other hand, ignoring relevant attributes may lead to the omitted variable bias. A split sample approach was used to find the balance between the possibility of omitted variable bias and cognitive burden; one version of the questionnaire used DCE with the lower number of attributes, of which some were multidimensional, while the other version used DCE with the greater number of more specific attributes. By using partial profile design in the latter experiment, the number of attributes in the choice task was identical in both experiments. Perceived difficulty of the choice task, self-reported choice certainty and choice consistency were similar across the two experiments. Heterogeneity in preferences and scale was detected in both experiments. Indications of non-compensatory behavior, and greater error variance among less experienced trail users were found in the partial profile experiment with more specific trail attributes, but not in the experiment with multidimensional attributes. Based on the research results, important managerial implications were derived. Non-visual sensory experiences of nature, namely fresh air and soundscape, were generally more important to trail users than visual experiences. Crowding was detected as an important characteristic of trail experience; however, trail users were willing to tolerate relatively high levels of crowding.

Wintering Waterfowl Avoidance and Tolerance of Recreational Trail Use

Abstract. An experimental approach was used to investigate wintering waterfowl responses to introduced trail use at foraging sites with and without recreational trails in California, USA. Waterfowl were exposed to trail use in the form of two researchers walking levees adjacent to ponded habitat, and the number of waterfowl by species were compared before and after experimental walks in 40-m bands starting at the levee and extending 200 m into the ponds. The researchers recorded distances to the nearest individuals, responses of focal animals, and numbers of recreational trail users. The most numerous species were Ruddy Duck (Oxyura jamaicensis), Northern Shoveler (Anas clypeata), and scaup spp. (Aythya affinis and A. marila). Recreational trail use rates at trail sites averaged 1 to 82 people/hr. The greatest difference in numbers of birds before vs. after experimental walks occurred in the two 40-m bands closest to the levee at non-trail sites (0–40 m [t = 4.558, P = 0.0001], 40–80 m [t = 3.775, P = 0.0...

Emerald ash borer impacts on visual preferences for urban forest recreation settings

Extensive outbreaks of the emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis; EAB), an invasive forest insect, are having serious impacts on the cultural ecosystem services of urban forests in the United States and other countries. Limited experience with how such outbreaks might affect recreational opportunities prompted this investigation of visitors to a state park in St. Paul/Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, where EAB damage is occurring. A photo-questionnaire solicited visitors’ visual preferences for trail environments in a discrete choice experiment. Systematically manipulated digital images simulated different levels of EAB impact in combination with other physical and social attributes including trail-proximate EAB-related forest management responses, land use context of the viewscape beyond the trail environment, visitor types, and visitor densities. Results indicated that EAB impacts were significant but of lesser importance than surrounding viewscape development and visitor numbers. Specifically, respondents preferred dense trailside shrub vegetation and low trail user numbers and disliked viewscapes showing city buildings and removal of most ash trees. Results suggest that trail planning should not only consider near-view landscape impacts but also the visual quality of more distant viewscapes, and that urban forest managers need to be aware of how forest insect impacts and subsequent management responses affect recreation setting preferences.

Advancing project-scale health impact modeling for active transportation: A user survey and health impact calculation of 14 US trails

Abstract Only 21% of American adults achieve recommended levels of physical activity. Urban trails are popular venues both to engage in recreational physical activities and for active commuting. The Rails-to-Trails Conservancy's Trail Modeling and Assessment Platform (T-MAP) is a multi-year research project to develop data-driven trail planning and management tools. We surveyed over 3000 trail users on 14 US urban trails. The survey was developed specifically to inform health impact calculation, including items on trail use and other physical activity. We calculate health impacts in terms of six chronic diseases and mortality, and use treatment costs and Value of Statistical Life (VSL) for monetization, respectively. Regular trail use prevents 36 hospitalizations due to chronic diseases and 182 premature deaths per 100,000 trail users and year, worth $2,1 million in avoided treatment costs and $1,7 billion based on VSL, respectively. Compared to VSL, avoided treatment costs provide more tangible estimates of health impacts, but challenges with data availability and comparability call for cautious interpretations. Our estimates for chronic disease cases are limited to hospitalization discharges and treatment costs, resulting in considerably lower figures than those for reduction in mortality risk. Trail users are a highly active population. 40% achieve physical activity recommendations even without trail use, and with trail use, 87% do. Health benefits would be more than double if inactive subjects would take up the same amount of trail use as observed in our sample.

Pathways to Health: Association Between Trail Use, Weight Status, and Self-Rated Health Among Adults in Greenville County, South Carolina, 2014.

We examined associations between adults’ use of a prominent rail-trail and their weight status and self-rated health. In 2014, a random-digit-dial survey of Greenville County, South Carolina, residents (n = 639) was used to collect data on trail use, height and weight, self-rated health, and demographics. Trail users were half as likely to be overweight or obese as trail nonusers (odds ratio [OR] = 0.56; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.33–0.95). Similarly, trail users were significantly more likely to report high self-rated health than were trail nonusers (OR = 1.83; 95% CI, 1.13–2.97). Findings suggest that trail use is associated with healthier weight status and higher self-rated health and supports the development, maintenance, and promotion of trail resources.

The influence of Weaver and Dale’s (1978) paper, “Trampling effects of hikers, motorcycles and horses in meadows and forests”

Trampling of vegetation and soils by recreational activities is a recurrent concern in many lands where trail use is common. The degree of impact can vary with the myriad types of trail users. The Weaver and Dale article, “Trampling effects of hikers, motorcycles and horses in meadows and forests”, was the first to provide some insights about how different trampling agents might produce varied impacts. Weaver and Dale showed that horses and motorcycles produced greater impacts to soils and vegetation than hikers. This article appeared early in a relatively young field of study. The direct results of their research are still valuable today, but the greater impact of their paper was that it ushered in a phase of experimental trampling research that is ongoing. Because of their research and continual influence, land managers can now make better decisions about what type of recreation activity to discourage or encourage.