TITLE:
Impact of Transport Network Changes on Tourism in Protected Areas: A Case Study of Ayubia National Park, Pakistan
AUTHORS:
Muhammad Shaker, Muhammad Adnan, Elke Hermans, Ansar Yasar, Geert Wets
KEYWORDS:
Transport, Management, National Park, Tourism, Strategies, Visitors
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Transportation Technologies,
Vol.10 No.4,
September
28,
2020
ABSTRACT: The inflow caused by
tourists in peak seasons exerts an uncontrollable pressure on the existing
infrastructure. The Ayubia National Park in Pakistan faces traffic delays and
capacity restraints on the connecting roads in peak season. The study focuses
on the formulation of critical strategies by deploying amendments in the
transport network. The methodology contains three parts: 1) a questionnaire was designed to inquire about
several variables from the visitors; 2) the second part was traffic count data collection and
analysis. Based on the response collected, the impact of multiple strategies on
the network was analyzed using TransCad; 3) in the third part, the results obtained were shared with experts to
gain their valuable opinions. It was observed that the time of the day based
access restriction to heavy vehicles could lead to dropping the Volume to
capacity ratio from 1.7 to 1.2. However, the experts were also of the view that
network changes can enhance and improve the visitors’ experience.