# Presentation: 401638

## A Clean Bus Tour District in Yellowstone National Park:  Defining the Parameters

**A Clean Bus Tour District in Yellowstone National Park:  Defining the Parameters**

- Thomas Barron  UC Davis
- John Sacklin  Yellowstone National Park
- Susan Handy, Ph.D.   UC Davis
- 1/11/05

- Visa International - confidential

## Introduction: Travel in Yellowstone

-  Personal vehicle dominant
- 300 miles of roads
-  45 mph speed limit
- 12 major attractions
-  5 entrances/exits
-  ~1 million autos/year
- Externalities in 2002:
- 591 accidents
- 2 human fatalities
- 79 large mammal
- 	fatalities

- Visa International - confidential

**Notes:**
75% enter one exit another
No local transit service—about 1% riding buses and snowcoaches
Visitors rely on the automobile as virtually the sole means of transportation in the park. 

Experience depicted at Mammoth welcome to visitor taking the picture, not for commuting park employee or visitor 20 cars back.

## Challenge—Yellowstone a Park of Paradoxes

- Crowded
- Flat growth
- Automobile dominated

- Empty
- Exponential growth
- Mass transit dominated

- Visa International - confidential

**Notes:**
1. Over a dozen major attractions, but some think Old Faithful is Yellowstone. 29 X more vehicles in shoulder season.
The same Park, on the same day can feel crowded and empty, isolated yet entrenched w/ gateway communities, experiencing flat growth in one of the boomingest areas in the U.S.  

2. Roughly 3 million visitors for last 10 years. Surrounding area is booming.

3. Driving park, 
60 yrs driving, 70 yrs mass transit
1917 cars allowed. push in 1946
but over half of the history shows mass transit.

## Bus Transit District

- Key transit factors
- Case studies of other parks
- Gateway community interviews

- Visa International - confidential

**Notes:**
literature review of key transit factors impacting ridership, 
case studies of transit systems in other national parks
interviews with community stakeholders (such as...). 

## Key Transit Factors

-   Light-rail/ monorail
-   Biggest hurdles—
- uncertainty of bus arrival/departure time
- frequency of service
- financial incentive
- comparative travel time
- rider experience
- environmental considerations
- information/marketing

- Visa International - confidential

**Notes:**
ITS features—realtime data
Not greater than 30 minute headways
Must be clearly cheaper than car (START example)
Technology: farelessness, low floors, raised terminals
Night owl bus in Boston
Marketing—the Yellow Bus that’s green.

## Zion

-   Good
- local ridership/involvement
- simplicity
- trailers
- park owns rolling stock, leases services
- solves parking problems
- lunches to dinners
- natural bus stops
- OEM vehicles (non-prototypes)
-   Bad
- Denver-located design team
- leasing bus stops

- Visa International - confidential

**Notes:**
In paper, direct comparison of each in table against literature review.  Here for interest.
Simplicity canyon
Lunches to dinners
Natural bus stops
Why interesting for Yellowstone

## Acadia

-   Good
- solves parking problems
- coordination
- League of Towns
- State of Maine/DOT
- FHWA
- arrival countdown
- short distances
- employee labor pool
- Internet *Car-free Travel Guide*
- clean—propane
- asset shift
-   Bad
- inconsistent source
-       of operating funds
-      (LL Bean)

- Visa International - confidential

**Notes:**
ITS features 93% more likely to ride (electronic bus departure signs)
Tour district concept—move to a less used area. number of more years of service life.
Asset shift is what UPS does. From Chicago to Gary Indiana.

Here and Zion, Yellowstone does not really have a parking problem (comparatively)

## Yosemite

-  Like Yellowstone—long distances, windshield tour, mountainous
- 	 terrain, less apparent parking problems
-  Good
- YARTS—employees as bread and butter
- YVVS—excellent ridership (intra-valley, like Canyon Rim Drive)
- Joint Powers Authority
-  Bad
- county feuds
- inconsistent funding source
- 	YVVS = Delaware North

- Visa International - confidential

**Notes:**

Tuolumne and Madera counties would not support YARTS.  They feared that a successful YARTS would eliminate cars and they would lose business and overnight stays. 

YVVS add on to beds.

Intravalley movement of vehicles.  Looking at having people park peripherally.  Analogous with canyon.

Delaware North—elasticity of demand.  

##   Mixed emotions
Mayor Milam: mystique, toys, freedom of a cruise ship 
“Can we make a portion of the Park inaccessible, except via bus?”
Jerry Brady (Post Register): uniqueness & creativity
“We need a poor man’s version of the American Orient Express.” 
  Yellowstone as Central Park
  Requirements
driving traffic to businesses
include transit needs (healthcare)
economic vitality (ex. fuel cottage industry)

- Mayor Milam: mystique, toys, freedom of a cruise ship
- “Can we make a portion of the Park inaccessible, except via bus?”
- Jerry Brady (Post Register): uniqueness & creativity
- “We need a poor man’s version of the American Orient Express.”
-   Yellowstone as Central Park
-   Requirements
- driving traffic to businesses
- include transit needs (healthcare)
- economic vitality (ex. fuel cottage industry)

**Gateway Community Interviews**

- Visa International - confidential

**Notes:**
2. 5 semi-immediate gateway communities, but over 20 if include through traffic. YBP thinks of Greater Yellowstone as population 650,000 w/ very large central park.

Mixed emotions—take generalization and quantify it. pull from the interviews name examples that show different perspectives.  
interesting twists on broad feelings.  

SNOWMOBILES cloud effort.

20 counties over 500k

Aging population

Push up from Salt Lake City (SLASH = save $200, spend $56)

1970-200 61% increase in population vs. 38% nationally

## Recommendations

**  ****Yellowstone-specific challenges**
- 5 entrances/exits
- multiple destinations
- long distances
**  ****Integrate best practices**
- ITS
- low floors/raised platforms
- fareless
- clean fuels
** ****Test district**
- small
- voluntary
- multiple attractions
**  ****Visitor experience**
- uniqueness
- Old/New Yellow Bus

- Visa International - confidential

**Notes:**
Also - will your discussion compare why the other parks examples are useful or not for Yellowstone - the key point is our multiple entrances and multiple destinations (combined with size and distance from some gateway communities) makes usd far more of a challenge. 

## Acknowledgements/Contact

- Questions or comments?
- Thomas Barron
- tmbarron@ucdavis.edu
- (415) 939-3911

- Visa International - confidential