It’s no secret that many Texel residents think that too many tourists come to spend their holidays on the island. It sometimes causes long queues at the TESO and, with extreme crowds, even traffic jams on the island. That is why innovative traffic sensors have now been installed to monitor traffic behavior on the island.
In the coming months, the project will make an inventory of how many cars, cyclists and even pedestrians make the crossing to Texel. “This makes it clear at what time the island infrastructure is being used and how busy it actually is,” says KADO Texel. KADO is a tourism knowledge portal and collaborates in this project with the municipality and the company Metricks.
With this pilot project, information will be collected until the end of this year about how tourists move around the island. Because the municipality of Texel would like to reduce car use by tourists in the future, the information can contribute to a plan to get more tourists to the island by bicycle or on foot.
Tandems
And it’s not just the registration of cars, cyclists and pedestrians alone; from the summer holidays, the system can also distinguish between different types of bicycles. Sports bicycles, bicycles with trailers and, for example, tandems can all be counted separately.
“This gives the parties a detailed picture of the use of roads and cycle paths, so that better and targeted decisions can be made to improve the infrastructure,” says KADO Texel.