VERS (Visitation Estimation & Reporting System)

VERS Overview
Visitor Estimation and Reporting System (VERS) is the Corps approved protocol for measuring visitor use at water resource development projects providing outdoor recreation opportunities. Annual visitation reports are prepared for the U.S. Congress and for the Office of Management and Budget. USACE Visitation Estimation has evolved over the years incorporating new features and requirements needed to meet the changing needs of the USACE Recreation Business Line. Estimates of recreation has been beneficial for planning, management, and reporting purposes for many years.

Visitation is one of many data metrics used to ensure federal appropriation investments are prioritized appropriately based on efficiency and performance. However, it is far from the only consideration in establishing recreation budgets. Program managers must compare utilization figures against expenditure to ensure appropriate amount of service is being provided. Utilization is factored into and against many other ratios including Unit Day Value and National Economic Benefit development along with revenues collected to establish the value and benefits to the nation. With the 20/20 budget, visitation will be one of many data features used to categorize and standardize operations and maintenance (O&M) activities with similar costs for similar projects across USACE.

The newest visitation modernization effort builds on groundwork laid by VERS (Visitation Estimation & Reporting System) in the early 1990's to increase consistency of visitation estimates across projects. Improvements in basic procedures and processes, such as

• Better alignment of traffic meter locations with best practices
• Automated tools for survey planning and implementation
• New visitation surveys
• More rigorous methods of assigning load-factors to recreation areas that will not be surveyed will likely have a greater impact on achieving more consistent visitation numbers.

Accurate visitation numbers are important to the project and the district in many different aspects. Visitation numbers are exported into Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) and CWBI-OPS databases and then used to

• Inform project management decision,
• In justifications for grant requests (federal lands transportation program/federal lands access program),
• Is shared publicly and with elected officials via value to the nation fact sheets and corps lakes websites.
• In annual project reassessments,
• In a variety of management tools and documents and
• To helps consensus building with partners and stakeholders.

Visitation collection and estimation is a mandated requirement for all federal land management agencies. Having consistent and accurate visitation data benefits our nation's programs tremendously by sharing a vision of use on our federal lands and waters?

Policy & Procedures	Meter Information
Visitation	Training
VERS Timeline	Historical Information
VERS Contacts	VERS on the Go

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