In 2019, The Allegheny National Forest Business Bureau provided the TVTA a TRAFx counter to determine actual trail usage by counting hikers and walkers. This is a system consisting of state-of-the-art hardware and software designed to collect, view, and manage data. The counter was placed on the Marilla Bridges Trail around the Marilla Reservoir in February of 2019, and has been collecting the information since that time. The charts and graphs generated by this software enable the TVTA to see the number of hikers and walkers that utilize the trail. This data can also show the times of day with peak traffic, as well as the busiest days of the week. Weekly, monthly, and annual totals can also be observed from the data collected. All of this data is useful as the TVTA looks to plan trail maintenance. It is also useful for the development of future projects and events.
Here are some graphs produced from data collected by the counter. The date range for these graphs is from when the counter was initially installed in Feb 2019, up to the download on April 30th of this year. The weekly graph shows the peak weeks where you can see the opening week of trout season in April, the 4th of July, and the Marilla Trail Race in October. The break in the data from Dec-Jan is where the counter had to be removed for repairs. It was reinstalled just before Winter Trek in Feb 2020 where you can see the upticks in the daily data. The early/soft opening of trout season this year can be observed as well.
