Raven’s Rock and the Tanawha Trail

Sarah Dochow Andrew May Callie Safley

Purpose

• Estimate Value • Determine Demand for the Environmental Resources • Investigate Factors – Permit – Ranger Presence – Maintenance

Theory

• Demand Curve – Created by putting trips on the horizontal axis and the travel cost on the vertical axis • Consumer surplus – Region below the demand curve and above the average price level

$ CS ΔCS

Theory

TRIPS

Method

• Random Interviews – At or near Tanawha Trail and Raven’s Rock – Hypothetical questions used to establish shifts in the demand curve • Demand curve – Derived from interview responses • Confirmed confidentiality – Made results available if requested

Data

• Sample size = 38 people • Average Number of Trips to Tanawha Trail – 3.13 ± 0.67

• Average Number of Trips to Raven’s Rock – 1.907 ± 0.464

Data (cont.)

• Average Willingness to Pay for hiking permit – $7.59 – SD = $10.81

• Average Travel Cost (.36*roundtrip distance) – $79.08 – SD = $113.76

Data (cont.)

• • • • 63% were male participants Average Education level was 3.5 years of college Average age was 34 74% were willing to pay for a permit

Statistical Results

• • We took the natural log of RP-trips and add one to get the values for the horizontal axis: ln(trips+1) • We had travel cost on the vertical axis calculated by: (.36*roundtrip distance) We had three possible demand shifters but only one was statistically significant at the 92% level: (1-pvalue)= (1-.08)=.92

Demand Model

Intercept Demand Slope Park Ranger Trail Maintenance

Coefficient Standard Error

0.85

0.131

-0.0015

0.028

0.313

0.00062

0.171

0.171

t Stat

6.53

-2.40

0.165

1.83

Demand Model

600 500 400 300 200 100 0 0 0.5

1

Trips

1.5

2 2.5

Consumer Surplus

• • • • • Consumer Surplus Semi-log: –x/b; where x = Number of Trips, b = travel cost coefficient b = -.0015

Number of trips to Ravens Rock: x = 1.908; CS = 1.908/.0015 = $1272 Number of trips to Ravens Rock with the quality improvement: Δx = 1.36; ΔCS = 1.36/.0015 = $908

Aggregate CS

• • • • Individual ΔCS = $908 Population of 5 counties = 903,568 We assume that 5% are hikers (Outdoor Recreation Participation Study) Aggregate ΔCS = 41,021,987.2

Analysis

• • • Major Factor – People are more concerned with trail maintenance than costs Bias – People live in these locations due to the fact that they enjoy activities, like hiking Improvement for further Research – Larger sample size – More diversity among survey participants