Visitor Traffic Monitoring

Due to vehicle congestion becoming an issue in recent years, Acadia National Park is implementing a vehicle reservation system. To properly implement the system, the park required additional data on vehicle behavior on the Ocean Drive corridor. The 2020 WPI research team gathered necessary data by strategically placing 15 cameras to observe vehicle parking patterns in the parking lots and roadway along Ocean Drive. By analyzing the time-stamped images, The WPI team was able to accurately determine the average length of stay in the individual parking lots, the average length of stay on the Ocean Drive corridor, and the correlation of various parameters associated with visitor behavior. With this data, Acadia National Park is more informed and better positioned to refine the parking reservation system.