1
Return

Trail Triage: Identifying Collaborative Workflows in Trail Management Assisted by Crowdsourced Reports

delete2026-03-01
delete0
PRE
AI
C
Cao, Yusheng *
H
Hassan, Taha
P
Patel, Jaitun V.
M
McCrickard, D. Scott
DOI:10.1145/3799453delete
deleteOriginal
deleteOriginal request for help
deleteShare
deleteSave
Abstract

Abstract

En 中文
Trail management is a complex, distributed endeavor that requires coordination among conservancies, government agencies, and local trail clubs to ensure visitor safety, environmental stewardship, and the protection of historical resources. Despite its importance, there has been limited systematic research on understanding or supporting the collaborative workflows that sustain this work. To help bridge this gap, we conducted interviews with 10 trail managers involved in or familiar with field operations across five major U.S. long-distance trails. A thematic analysis of the transcripts reveals that trail management spans a wide array of responsibilities, including volunteer coordination, resource allocation, hazard sense-making, and on-the-ground fieldwork. We identify institutional inefficiencies that surface during four distinct stages of the temporal collaborative sense-making process as managers interpret and act upon hiker-submitted reports of trail hazards. We conclude by outlining design implications for field reporting and decision-support systems that better align with the realities of volunteer-based, resource-constrained trail organizations, supporting more timely and coordinated action across distributed stakeholders.
Keywords:
Trail management
Crowd-sourced Reporting
Volunteer Coordination
Temporal Sense-making

Journal

P
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACM ON HUMAN COMPUTER INTERACTION
IF:
0
Papers:
392
Citations:
0

Organization

V
virginia polytechnic institute & state university
Scholars:
938
Papers: 415
Citations: 0
University of Alabama System cover
University of Alabama System
Scholars:
4.2W
Papers: 3.7W
Citations: 68
Cited Papers

Cited Papers

Citing Papers

Citing Papers