Impact of Transport Network Changes on Tourism in Protected Areas: A Case Study of Ayubia National Park, Pakistan

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.