Grand Junction's Data-Driven Approach to Sustainable Tourism

Google Maps works well in cities. In the Northeast, it only tells half the story. What it doesn’t show you: • Seasonal road behavior A route that’s “fastest” today may slow down drastically after one night of rain. • Local driving realities Hairpin bends, convoy traffic, fog zones, and narrow mountain passes don’t show up on an app. • Administrative pauses Some stretches depend on permits, clearances, or local movement schedules. • Human factors Driver fatigue, daylight hours, and weather exposure matter more here than distance. This is why Northeast itineraries need human judgment — not just digital routes. At Majestic Northeast Tours & Adventures, planning starts with local experience and real-time updates, not just map estimates. #NortheastTravel #ArunachalPradesh #MountainTravel #TravelPlanning #OnGroundExperience

What visitor data outdoor attractions actually need (and what they don’t). Many outdoor and heritage organisations feel increasing pressure to “collect more data” about visitors. In reality, more data often creates more noise, not better decisions. In working closely with outdoor attractions, we’ve found that a small set of non-invasive insights tend to matter most. For example: • Where visitors move, pause, or turn back • How long different areas are typically explored • Which routes and trails are most (and least) used • How patterns change by time, season, or conditions What matters far less in places of natural beauty: • Metrics designed for marketing rather than site management and care • Requiring visitors to constantly interact with a device to “generate insights” • Data systems that are complex to explain or justify The goal isn’t to observe people, it’s to understand the shape of a visit well enough to make better decisions for places worth preserving. This principle underpins TreeNav's approach to visitor insights: focusing on aggregated data that supports improvement (rather than surveillance).

With several key developments for 2026 now taking shape, we are offering short, informal 30-minute briefings for Active Travel and Transport Planning teams. These sessions will focus on capability, insight, and delivery. Topics we can cover include: - Citizen science feedback loops, featuring lived-experience route insights through 'Rate My Routes' - New active travel mapping capabilities, including filterable, exportable GeoJSON data to support analysis, reporting, and scheme development - Roll & Stroll Month, our new multi-modal gamified approach to encourage walking, wheeling, and cycling, aligned with inclusive participation goals - Year-round active travel behavior change programs, proven delivery, and bespoke monitoring to support workplaces, communities, and social groups These sessions are particularly relevant for authorities considering how Capability Fund investment can enhance ongoing engagement, monitoring, and evidence-led decision-making beyond infrastructure delivery. If a brief, no-pressure conversation would be useful, please grab some time with me here: https://lnkd.in/e5NEg5Qw

What does Bay Wheels data reveal about how San Francisco actually uses bike share? 🚲 I pulled publicly available Bay Wheels trip data and built an interactive explorer to analyze usage patterns across the city: https://lnkd.in/gXHETwyG A few patterns stood out: • ~80% of rides are on e-bikes • ~80% of trips are taken by members • Demand peaks align tightly with commute windows (8–9am, 4–6pm) • During major events like Outside Lands and Hardly Strictly, member share drops to ~30–40% • Golden Gate Park/Bridge, the Presidio, Fisherman’s Wharf, and the Embarcadero show a meaningfully lower membership mix than the city overall A few implications: • On a typical day, bike share in SF appears more utilitarian than recreational • Events temporarily shift the system from commuter-heavy to visitor-heavy • The spike in casual rides at major landmarks suggests tourism and destination-based trips are concentrated geographically If ~80% of rides are commute-aligned and member-driven, Bay Wheels functions less like a leisure amenity and more like distributed transit infrastructure. I built this using publicly available trip-level data, independent preprocessing, Mapbox for visualization, and AI-assisted tooling to prototype quickly. Analysis is independent and not affiliated with Bay Wheels or Lyft. Curious how others in urban mobility think about: • Bike share as transit infrastructure • Event-driven demand modeling • First/last-mile integration Feel free to leave a question or feedback below!

GIS for Everyday Life: Beyond the Complexities For Day 10 of my map challenge, I’m stepping away from complex code to highlight a tool we can all use: Google My Maps. I’ve used this feature to design a custom travel itinerary, proving that GIS isn't just for large-scale spatial studies; it’s a powerful tool for our day-to-day lives. By mapping out a trip, we can visualize the flow of our journey and optimize our routes, ensuring we aren't zigzagging across the city and wasting precious time. Why this matters: Efficient Planning: Visualizing destinations on a map helps in grouping nearby locations, significantly reducing travel time and logistical fatigue. No GIS Experience Required: One of the best features of My Maps is its accessibility; it allows a broader category of people to create professional spatial plans without specialized technical training. Seamless Integration: These maps can be easily embedded into personal websites or shared with travel companions, making the data instantly actionable. Whether it’s a professional watershed study or a weekend getaway, spatial planning allows us to navigate the world with more intent and efficiency. Data Sources: Base Map & Routing: Google Maps / My Maps #MapChallenge #GIS #MyMaps #TravelPlanning #SpatialThinking #GeographyEveryday #Cartography #TravelTech #EfficientLiving #NoCodeGIS

Most navigation mistakes don’t happen on the trail. They happen before you even start. When people look at a map, they usually focus on trails, distance, and place names. What often gets missed is the most important part: what the land is actually doing. Topographic maps show elevation and terrain using contour lines. By learning how to read them, you can understand where a trail gets steep, where it flattens out, where ridges and valleys lie, and how demanding a route will be, all before stepping outside. Contour spacing tells you effort. Lines close together mean steep climbs. Lines far apart indicate gentler terrain. The shapes of the lines reveal features like peaks, ridges, valleys, and spurs. Once you understand these patterns, a flat map starts to feel three-dimensional. This skill matters even if you use GPS apps. A GPX track may look simple on a screen, but without understanding the underlying terrain, it is easy to underestimate elevation gain, exposure, or risk. Topographic maps help you plan safer routes, identify potential campsites and water sources, and prepare alternative exits if conditions change. Learning to read topographic maps changes how you plan hikes and how confidently you move outdoors. You stop reacting to the trail and start anticipating it. We’ve broken this down step by step in our Get Out With Reccy newsletter (https://lnkd.in/gMvvrmbh), where we share practical outdoor skills and knowledge. In the newsletter, we publish: • weekly outdoor skills and safety know-how • one offbeat place to explore every month Subscribe to it to get regular outdoor updates.

"Road travel has always been part of cultural life, but today it is also a rich source of geospatial data. Every road trip, commute, and late-night drive generates location signals that contribute to a growing understanding of mobility patterns. For GIS professionals, these patterns offer insight not only into transportation systems but also into consumer behavior, retail demand, and lifestyle trends." https://lnkd.in/gaB34t_P

Recreation.gov goes beyond trip planning. Supported by Booz Allen Hamilton, its cloud-based management platform helps agencies manage federal lands more efficiently using visitation data. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/e-CxeFfp

Recreation.gov goes beyond trip planning. Supported by Booz Allen Hamilton, its cloud-based management platform helps agencies manage federal lands more efficiently using visitation data. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/gTtPAFU5

Recreation.gov goes beyond trip planning. Supported by #BoozAllen, its cloud-based management platform helps agencies manage federal lands more efficiently using visitation data. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/e26f9s9D