University of Colorado Boulder

Policy Brief

Reservation Policies and Equity in National Park Access

Reservation systems can protect crowded parks, but design choices can also shift access toward visitors with more income, flexibility, and planning capacity.

Main Takeaway

Managing crowds and preserving equitable access are linked design problems.

Reservation systems can reduce congestion and protect fragile resources, but long advance windows and intense competition may advantage visitors who can plan earlier or respond faster.

Why Policymakers Should Care

National parks face high demand, strained infrastructure, and resource protection challenges. Reservation systems are useful management tools, but they can create distributional effects that are easy to miss if agencies only track crowding and total visits.

Key Findings

  • Advance purchase windows and competition for permits both disproportionately favor higher-income users.
  • In the most competitive markets, reservation holders come from zip codes with 3-5% higher median household income.
  • Extending the advance purchase window to six months shifts reservations toward users from zip codes with 5% higher income.
  • Robustness checks imply individual effects in the same direction.

Policy Implications

  • Reservation systems should be evaluated for distributional outcomes, not only operational performance.
  • Shorter release windows, mixed release schedules, lotteries, or set-asides may create different access tradeoffs.
  • Equity monitoring should be built into reservation-system design and reporting.

Design Questions

How far in advance?

Longer windows may favor people with more predictable schedules.

How competitive?

Fast-moving markets may favor users with better information and flexibility.

How monitored?

Agencies can track access outcomes alongside crowding and resource indicators.

7

National parks included in the analysis.

5%

Higher user income associated with extending the advance purchase window to six months.

2

Reservation features studied: advance purchase windows and competition for permits.

Timed Entry Evidence

Permit supply, competition, and visitor income move together.

Figures 2a-2c show day-ahead permit availability, competition in short release windows, and median household income for three timed-entry reservation systems.

Time-series chart for Glacier Going-to-the-Sun Road showing day-ahead permits, competition, and median income.
Figure 2a. Glacier - Going to the Sun Road Day-ahead permits, competition in five-minute release windows, and reservation-holder median income over the 2022 season. Native PDF
Time-series chart for Rocky Mountain National Park Bear Lake Road showing day-ahead permits, competition, and median income.
Figure 2b. RMNP - Bear Lake Road Day-ahead permits, competition in five-minute release windows, and reservation-holder median income over the 2021 season. Native PDF
Time-series chart for Yosemite showing day-ahead permits, competition, and median income.
Figure 2c. Yosemite Day-ahead permits, competition in five-minute release windows, and reservation-holder median income over the 2022 season. Native PDF

Paper

Reservation Policies and Equity in National Park Access

Invited revisions resubmitted to Nature Communications.

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