Delivering the Health, Environmental and Economic Benefits of Trails to Rural Americans through a High Efficiency Trail Assessment Process

The Universal Trail Assessment Process (UTAP) and TrailWare, software for UTAP data, were developed to obtain objective trail information. Over 700 people within Federal, State, local and non-profit agencies have been UTAP trained throughout the US. Requiring 9 to 15 person hours per mile of trail is the primary factor that limits the use of UTAP. Over 85% of rural land managers consider objective trail information to be important. Despite broad support for the benefits of UTAP, the availability of objective trail assessment information remains very limited, particularly in rural areas. Rural land managers indicate that they need a system for collecting objective trail information that is: highly durable, lightweight and portable, compatible with agency databases, automated for use by one person, and suitable for the diverse range of rural trail conditions. The goal of this research is to investigate the benefits of objective trail information to both land managers and trail users. Phase II will incorporate the design criteria specified by rural land managers into a new high efficiency trail assessment process (HETAP-2) and establish the scientific validity and reliability of HETAP-2 trail data.