During the summer, Cape Cod National Seashore faces congestion along its main access road, State Route 6 as well as having its six parking areas frequently fill up, forcing visitors back onto congested Route 6 to look for alternate recreational sites. For the 2011 Intelligent Transportation Systems Implementation Study, Volpe worked with National Seashore staff and stakeholders to develop a Parking Management and Traveler Information concept. The initial effort describes candidate technologies and provides cost figures to help the National Seashore assess the feasibility of its options. It also assembles and identifies some of the operational, environmental, and institutional elements that will need to be addressed before the projects can be implemented. Volpe also helped ensure that the plan and its elements are coordinated with state and regional ITS planning projects, other Cape Cod transportation projects, and other park best practices.

In 2012, Volpe developed a prototype parking management system that enables the National Seashore to predict when beach parking lots will fill. The system keeps track of the rate at which vehicles are entering and exiting, and displays a clock showing the time the lot is expected to reach capacity. The prototype system was deployed in the summer of 2013 at Little Creek parking area, which is the primary parking facility for Coast Guard Beach in the town of Eastham. The Parking Management System Pilot Synthesis documents the lessons learned from the pilot.

With the lessons learned from the 2013 deployment, Volpe will move forward with developing and deploying the Parking Management System across the National Seashore’s seven beach parking areas in time for the 2014 summer season. The system design will allow town-managed beaches within the National Seashore to be added in the future. Integration with the regional transportation management system and traveler information system will be future phases.

Final Report, March 2011
Cape Cod National Seashore Intelligent Transportation Systems Implementation Plan Final Report (PDF, 1.69MB)