(For Canadian analyses, dissemination areas are available.) Visitor Home-Work analyses provide the aggregate expected home and work locations of visitors to a specific location.įrom the O-D to Pre-Set Geography analysis, I learned that the next stop for visitors traveling to the top five rest stops were generally clustered around the coast or around major metropolitan areas. Origin-Destination to Pre-set Geography analyses scan all trips that begin, end, or pass through any geography to identify the origins and destinations, ZIP code, census block group, or transportation analysis zone. Of course, this led me to wonder: where were the visitors to the top five busiest rest stops going next, and where are their home locations? To find out, I ran two additional analyses – an Origin-Destination to Pre-Set Geography and a Visitor Home-Work analysis. When we invest in rest stops, we’re certainly helping road trippers and truck drivers, but also residents of local and nearby jurisdictions. This finding indicates that rest stops are providing important benefits and services to regional travelers – not just long-distance ones. Thirty one percent of trips from the top five most popular rest stops are under 20 miles – a slightly smaller share, but not by much. Nearly 35% of trips from all of the rest stops in the analysis are less than twenty miles long. I was surprised to see the relatively high volume of shorter, regional trips that originate at rest stops. The next step was to compare the length of trips that begin at any of the 76 rest stops I analyzed with the top five most popular rest stops. Four out of the top five rest stops have green/eco-friendly initiatives: The two rest stops in Maryland are LEED certified and the two in Connecticut are solar-powered.They each have at least six different food service options.They all provide electric vehicle charging stations as well as gas stations.They all appear to be recently remodeled.While I didn’t analyze rest stop amenities comprehensively as part of this study, I was curious about the services offered at the top five most popular rest stops. Likewise, the three rest stops further south, in Delaware and Maryland, are between Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., and they’re “on the way” to beach destinations in the mid-Atlantic. It is possible that these are popular rest stops because they serve travelers between New York City and Boston heading to summer beach destinations. The Milford Service Plaza and Darien Service Plaza are both located north of New York in Connecticut. It’s interesting to note that the top five rest stops are clustered around two locations. Next, I entered each latitude/longitude into StreetLight InSight, located the rest stop, and drew a polygon around it to create my analysis zones.Īnd with that, my first question was answered – my parents were at the fourth busiest rest stop along I-95, the Chesapeake House rest stop. From there, I removed any rest stops that did not have any facilities – basically, rest stops that just have parking or a scenic view. To do this, I first downloaded a list of 103 rest stops by latitude/longitude from POI Factory. from Maine to Florida – during the months of June, July, and August in 2017. I used StreetLight InSight to analyze the volume of traffic entering and exiting 76 rest stops along I-95 – an interstate highway that runs down the East Coast of the U.S. In this post, I’ll show you what I found out, and share a few tips for evaluating your state’s rest stops. It wasn’t long before I realized that, as a StreetLight Data employee, I had the answers at my fingertips – it was just a matter of running a study with StreetLight InSight®, our on-demand transportation analytics platform. ![]() As my mom texted me from the rest stop parking lot, waiting for a tow truck at 11pm, I started to wonder: How many other people were at rest stops at such a late hour? Who else might be there with my parents? Was this rest stop typically a busy one? A few weekends ago, my parents’ car broke down on their way back home from New York, but fortunately they were able to make it to a rest stop. Now that we’re in the full swing of summer here on the East Coast, my friends and family have been taking road trips along I-95 – and for better or for worse, rest stops are an inevitable part of those trips.
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