Bill,

Unfortunately, when we learned that the traffic modelers wanted to add the
data loggers to the study,so they could better understand traffic flow, we
also learned that drivers are assigned to different buses every day.  We
looked into the idea of having portable data entry screens that could stay
with a driver, but learned that that wasn't practical, and the only way to
do it was to install the devices in 20 buses and have them be used (or not
used) by a steady rotation of different drivers.  Joint Venture indicated
that they were interested in the data from the screens, particularly an
understanding of dropoff and pickup of hikers from VTS buses.  I would hope
that drivers would be interested in the road study getting accurate
information about their jobs, but understand that some drivers will never
be placated or convinced that some evil scheme isn't afoot.  We should
probably make it clear that drivers have the option of turning the thing
off if they want to.  It will cut into our sample size, but is better than
getting poor or bogus data.  I hope that when we meet with drivers in the
spring we can convince most of them to give the panels a try.  You suggest
that we should not trust the drivers to have an influence on the road study
because they might provide biased data.  I don't think we have any choice,
so we'll just have to try to convince some of them.

We are using the wildlife sighting information that has been collected for
many years, to make the basic model of the park road that will be used by
the traffic modelers.  That data will determine the probability that
traffic will stop at any particular spot on the road, in the model.  In
order to use that data, it's true that we'll have to work with the data,
and Laura has been doing that (she's on furlough for a month right now).
She's been dealing with the problem of mapping the odometer readings in the
database to actual road miles.  Given the brushfire nature of government
work, we're not always able to analyze all of the data that we take in as
promptly as we'd like.  There's always some other crisis that distracts us.
But by continuing to collect long-term data sets like the wildlife sighting
data, we at least provide continuity and the chance for someone to learn
from it in the future.




Tom Meier
Wildlife Biologist
Denali National Park and Preserve
P. O. Box  9
Denali Park, AK 99755
(907) 683-9572