Passive Mobile Data Analysis of Visitor Use in Parks and Protected Areas: Prospects and Challenges

With the ever-increasing availability of passive mobile data products and services, parks and protected areas (PPA) professionals have a growing interest in accessing them to analyze visitor use in PPA. There is substantial potential to use passive mobile data for studies of visitor use in PPA, but there is still much to learn about the suitability of them for this purpose. In this paper we provide an assessment of the current state of passive mobile data, including suggestions about how to evaluate the suitability of these data for PPA applications. Our research note is informed by our experience working with PPA professionals over several decades combined, and by our recent work using passive mobile data for PPA applications. We emphasize that this is a rapidly changing field with new data and approaches emerging on a continual basis. Nonetheless, in this discussion we provide our current perspective.