November 17th Marks 3-Year Anniversary of Transportation Innovation Agreement with the U.S. Department of Transportation

The NPS is celebrating the 3-year anniversary of the Secretarial-level Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) Regarding Transportation Innovation in the National Park System between the Departments of the Interior and Transportation (DOT). The MOU strengthens the collaboration between the National Park Service (NPS) and DOT to proactively address technological advances in the transportation industry called “emerging mobility.” The MOU outlines initiatives to provide enhanced, sustainable, and equitable access to public lands. This partnership focuses on adapting to industry trends that are making the transportation system increasingly electric, shared, connected, and autonomous.

In the three years since the execution of the MOU, the Departments continue to collaboratively develop policy and regulations and to leverage the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) to advance planning and engineering assessments, capital projects, and research across the NPS. The NPS, U.S. DOT’s Volpe Center, and the Federal Highway Administration work closely on key initiatives such as:

Electric buses at Zion National Park

Electric – Charging and Transit Systems

• The NPS completed or plans site assessments at over 100 sites. These assessments evaluate vehicle charging needs holistically for public-facing visitor charging and NPS transit and administrative fleet. There are currently over 200 active chargers located in parks and many more in gateway communities.
• Since 2021, the NPS replaced or secured funding to replace over 90 aging buses with battery electric buses. These purchases encompass approximately half of heavy-duty buses that NPS is responsible for, including major transit fleets at Zion, Grand Canyon, Acadia, and Yosemite.
• The NPS released internal guidance to help parks implement EV charging, including guidance on prioritizing public-facing EV charging and business model options.

Shared – Ridehailing and Micromobility

• NPS and DOT initiated a pilot program to establish dedicated ridehailing pick-up/drop-off areas in select parks with the goals of enhancing visitor safety, improving congestion management, and improving wayfinding and visitor experience. The program will run through Spring 2025.

Connected - Advanced Traveler Information Systems

• The NPS released up-to-date transit and ferry route and schedule information using the General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) for more than 20 systems that covers 85% of visitor transit boardings across the National Park System. This feed is now accessible on NPS.gov and third-party navigation apps.
• The NPS made available real-time roadway closure alerts and maps through NPS.gov, the NPS app, and the NPS Application Programming Interface (API) that app developers connect to using DOT’s Transportation Data Exchange (TDx) specification.
• The NPS created a recreational travel forecasting tool that provides detailed information to visitors on travel conditions throughout the year.

Automated electric bus at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

Autonomous – Transit Demonstrations

• Building upon lessons learned from the automated shuttle pilots at Yellowstone National Park and Wright Brothers National Memorial in 2021, the NPS tested an autonomous bus at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore during the summer of 2024. In November 2024, DOT Intelligent Transportation Systems Joint Program Office (ITS-JPO) awarded NPS $3.1 million over three years to fund pilots focused on fixed route and on-demand service and driver assist technologies. Lessons learned from these pilots will inform an automation strategic plan.