Trail Counts

The Trail Town Outreach Corps oversees installation, maintenance, and record-keeping for the Trafx infrared counters located along the Great Allegheny Passage bike trail, from McKeesport to Meyersdale.

These counters keep tabs on the number of trail users passing through, in order to collect data for end-of-year reports and economic impact studies like the one accessible from the Trail Town website.
(http://www.towncenter.info/downtown/trail_towns/07-294%20GAP%20Economic%...)

By collecting quantitative measurements of trail usage, the Trail Town program can estimate the amount of revenue coming through on the trail each season, to educate businesses about their market.

In addition, TTOC goes out into the field during peak use days (based on data from previous years) to compare the Trafx counts with a manual count. Certain discrepancies must be accounted for, such as repeat bikers (those traveling out and back during the survey) who will be counted twice by the counter when in actuality they must only be counted once. A manual count also allows TTOC to collect zip code data from users, user-type data (biker, walker, runner, etc.), and weather/trail conditions.

Additional counters in Maryland will be installed this year and managed by a separate Maryland corps, to broaden the scope of the data and define trail usage more analytically.

Funding for counters and related equipment provided by

Trafx Website:
http://www.trafx.net/