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This spring, with Volpe support, NPS launched its first-ever automated shuttle pilots. These are the first such deployments on recreational public lands in America.
The first NPS automated shuttle launched in a location made famous for a historic first: Wright Brothers National Memorial. The Connected Autonomous Shuttle Supporting Innovation (CASSI) transports visitors from the visitor center to the monument and sculpture that commemorates the Wright Brothers’ first flight. Launched on NPS Transformation Tuesday (a part of National Park Week) on April 20, CASSI is operated in partnership with the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) and will run through July 16, 2021.
“Wright Brothers National Memorial is excited about building upon the Wright brothers’ legacy of transportation innovation through this first-of-its-kind shuttle demonstration and through a successful partnership with NCDOT,” said David Hallac, superintendent, National Parks of Eastern North Carolina. “This exploratory initiative will inform the park service’s use of autonomous transportation systems in the future.”
 Figure 1. NCDOT's CASSI shuttle being deployed at Wright Brothers National Memorial. Credit: NCDOT.
An additional pilot launched at Yellowstone National Park—the world’s first national park—on June 9. The Electric Driverless Demonstration at Yellowstone (TEDDY) will transport visitors to and from the lodges and campground in Yellowstone’s Canyon Village through August 2021.
 Figure 2. TEDDY at Yellowstone National Park’s Canyon Village. Credit: NPS.
Since 2018, the Volpe Center has been providing extensive technical assistance to the NPS at all stages of the pilots, from project concept to planning and evaluation. Volpe will conduct detailed evaluations of CASSI and TEDDY following the conclusion of their operations later this year to help the NPS chart a path forward on possible uses for automated vehicle technologies in park settings. The lessons from these pilots could guide long-term decisions about transportation in parks, including enhancing access and encouraging green, car-free trips. Volpe is also supporting NPS on additional future pilots related to other emerging mobility technologies such as ridehailing, micromobility, and traveler information technologies.
For more information about the Volpe Center’s support to the NPS Emerging Mobility Program, click here.
Project Contacts: Travis Crayton and Amalia Holub
The Volpe Center is actively supporting the Federal Highway Administration’s Western Federal Lands Highway Division with two ongoing research projects. The first, The Future of Electric Bicycles on Public Lands, is examining the impacts of e-bikes on public lands and analyzing effective management practices for public lands managers. E-bike advocates have pushed for increased access and integration of e-bikes into existing public lands transportation and trail systems; some public agencies and managers support this approach, while others have sought to limit access. Further study is needed to inform data-driven decision-making and effective management practices. FHWA and Volpe are looking for case study examples to feature in our research and report – please follow this link to submit your ideas today!
The second project is called Integrating Public Health in Public Land Transportation Planning. Public health and transportation are each important public policy areas; the linkages between them are critical. Because long-range transportation-planning decisions can affect and influence health outcomes, it is especially important that this relationship be better understood. Federal Land Management Agencies (FLMAs) have an opportunity to reinforce this relationship, so that incorporating public health considerations into transportation planning can become standard practice across FLMAs. Please follow this link to submit your case study ideas today!
Project Contact: Jonah Chiarenza and Amy Plovnick
 Figure 3. Installation of Inductive Loops in Gravel and Asphalt Roadways. Credit: FWS
FLMAs need to understand how their transportation networks are utilized by the traveling public, and what facilities and roadways are most in demand by visitors, to make the best investment decisions. As part of a project funded by the FHWA Coordinated Technology Implementation Program, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) asked the Volpe Center to field-test Inductive Loop Signature (ILS) technology for visitor usage and origin/destination data at 10 locations within Kenai National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.
Inductive loops are typically used to count traffic, trigger traffic signals to change, or to raise gates in parking lots. More recently, these systems have been modified to capture the signal strengths over time as vehicles pass over the loop, to create a “signature” waveform for each vehicle. This waveform can serve as a crude anonymous identifier of that vehicle. When thus used, ILS technology could help FLMAs keep track of seasonal and year-round visitation at different locations, identify routes and travel patterns (including when a trip occurs and trip travel time), and find the times and locations of traffic congestion.
The FWS-Volpe assessment concluded that ILS technology can be used to collect a set of comprehensive traffic data from areas where other data is limited or does not exist. However, this technology is best suited for paved and striped roads in areas with cell reception, which is not always the condition nor the case in public lands. Furthermore, ILS provides the potential for acquiring a low degree of anonymous vehicle identification information that is sufficient for developing the datasets required for origin-destination studies. The ability to collect identification data while preserving anonymity is important; ILS provides a way to accomplish this. If preserving anonymity were not important, there are other more effective ways to conduct these types of analyses, such as using cell phone/Bluetooth identification approaches.
Project Contacts: Ben Rasmussen and Bill Baron
 Figure 4. The view from McAfee Knob. Credit: Roanoke Appalachian Trail Club.
Contemplate the Appalachian Trail and one of the first images to come to mind may be the rolling mountain peaks visible from atop the McAfee Knob overlook. This summit, along with Dragon’s Tooth and Tinker Cliffs—all of which are located in close proximity in southwest Virginia—are some of the most popular points along the trail and are collectively referred to as the Triple Crown.
NPS and their local partners have cited the increasing popularity of the trails to these destinations as a strain on the limited parking capacity around Triple Crown trailheads. To address the resulting congestion issues and related safety hazards, the Volpe Center was asked to conduct a transit feasibility study to assess the potential of connecting these regional trailheads via a shuttle service. The study was done in conjunction with an upcoming pedestrian bridge project at the McAfee Knob parking area being implemented by the Virginia Department of Transportation and a Triple Crown Visitor Use Management (VUM) study being conducted by the NPS Denver Service Center.
The Appalachian Trail is unique in the NPS in that it is cooperatively managed with partner organizations, including the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, local trail clubs, and the U.S. Forest Service, which manages land adjacent to much of the trail. As a result of this cooperative management structure, the trail feasibility study required close partner coordination to ensure that shared goals and objectives were integrated into the process and had support from all project stakeholders.
The Volpe Center team assisted NPS and its partners by evaluating parking lot and visitation data, assessing infrastructure conditions at the trailhead parking lots, and incorporating input collected from stakeholder interviews to generate five shuttle service scenarios connecting Triple Crown trailheads. The feasibility study, published in February 2021, will inform the VUM study.
Project Contact: Travis Crayton
 Figure 5. Image of Kevin McCoy visiting Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska.
What public lands projects are you working on now?
I manage Volpe’s support to the NPS Transportation Planning Program in the Park Planning and Special Studies Division. We are currently working on unit-level transportation plans, mobile device data travel analysis studies, and research on how park units cooperate with metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) and local transportation agencies, and we are also preparing to support an update to the NPS National Long Range Transportation Plan.
What types of projects outside of public lands do you work on?
I have worked for many years with the FHWA Office of Planning, Environment, and Realty (HEP) on transportation planning policy, research and oversight projects. One major project I am currently managing is Volpe’s support to HEP to implement its Virtual Public Involvement initiative. Other areas of focus include shared mobility planning, freight planning, and metropolitan planning best practices. I also recently co-led the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service’s major research report on how highways support U.S. agriculture.
What are your fondest memories of public lands?
Being a part of Volpe’s Public Lands Team has afforded me many great opportunities and experiences. Two that stand out are visiting Denali National Park and Preserve and Kenai Fjords National Park in Alaska, and being recognized by the American Planning Association with a Gold National Planning Achievement Award for our work on the NPS National Long Range Transportation Plan.
What new public land have you discovered since working at Volpe?
Since joining the team at Volpe, I have discovered the fantastic diversity of public lands that are protected by federal and state agencies. My understanding of the importance of public lands has grown tremendously, and I have been able to visit many of them. A couple of special examples include two near my home in Michigan, which I was able to support early in their history/expansion. I was able to visit the Pullman National Monument in Chicago as part of the initial planning phases for a new NPS unit with incredible social and civil rights history. I have also been privileged to explore natural resource focused units like the Detroit International Wildlife Refuge, the closest federal public lands site to my home, as part of planning for access to its new Refuge Gateway.
What’s the most unique, interesting, or strangest job you had before working at Volpe?
Before making a career shift into transportation planning, I was the production supervisor of an electronics engineering/manufacturing firm that specializes in producing embedded electronics for the recreational vehicle (RV) industry. We made the electronics that power all those fancy gadgets you see on RVs and travel trailers. And way back in my youth I worked the salad bar at a place called “Sign of the Beefcarver.”
If you were to have a job that wasn’t transportation or public lands related, what would it be?
I am still thrilled to be a transportation planner and working in public lands… but if I wasn’t doing that, I would likely be a music teacher. My undergraduate degree is in music education, and I was a volunteer brass coach for my high school’s marching band for a decade.
Contact: Kevin McCoy
Over the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally altered travel and led many people to use public lands as an escape and refuge from the stresses of everyday life. Missing the typical interactions in the office, the Public Lands Team (PLT) organized a photo contest for the very first time to see the beautiful places that our colleagues have visited during the pandemic and in recent years.
A panel of PLT volunteers reviewed over 200 photo submissions, which were captured at public lands sites spread across the country from Glacier Bay National Park in Alaska to Dry Tortugas National Park in the Florida Keys to the Boston Public Garden in Volpe’s very own backyard! These pictures were judged across six categories: Active Transportation, Other Transportation, Landscapes, Wildlife, People, and Other. The PLT would like to thank all of the participants in this year’s photo contest; we extend our congratulations to the winners whose photography can be found below.
 Figure 6. People: By Jonah Chiarenza in Canyonlands National Park
 Figure 7. Active Transportation: By Erica Simmons in Baxter State Park
 Figure 8. Landscape Co-Winner: By Jonah Chiarenza at Canyonlands National Park
 Figure 9. Landscape Co-Winner: By Erica Simmons at Redwood National and State Parks
 Figure 10. Landscape Honorable Mention: By Sam Waitt at Mount Baker in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest
 Figure 11. Transportation: By Drew Quinton at Grand Canyon National Park
 Figure 12. Wildlife: By Mark Mockett at Mount Rainier National Park
 Figure 13. Other: By Drew Quinton at Dry Tortugas National Park
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