AI helps Golden gain a clear picture of Clear Creek activity

As warmer weather comes to a close, the numbers are in and it looks like Clear Creek visitors had a heck of a good time.

It also looks like the city of Golden is making strides in getting a better handle on the growing number of visitors to the mountain community’s coveted Clear Creek corridor.

Over the years, the number of tubers and kayakers on the creek has skyrocketed, posing a conundrum for the small mountain town. On one hand, the increased foot traffic along the popular corridor has been a boon to local businesses. On the other hand, residents have urged the city to control the number of people using the river, while elected officials worry about environmental degradation.

City staffers said one of the biggest tools they have now is more data.

This year, the city not only increased its use of RFID tags, but also employed an AI-enhanced camera system that helps count tubes and track users.

A staff report submitted to the City Council notes that the Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool has been trained to identify people and tubes, but it can be trained to identify other items as needed, including people wearing floatation devices, helmets, grills and animals.

Licensed outfitters within the city use RFID tags on all of their rental equipment and require life jackets, but the city stepped up its game by handing out the tiny tracking devices to those using their own equipment.

“Both the camera and RFID data were collected continuously throughout the whole season, and the camera software gained advanced AI capabilities, so they were able to count and recognize more of the tubes in the video software,” said Marianna Moreau, a Colorado School of Mines summer research fellow who worked on the data collection project for the city.

Earlier this summer, the city restricted the sales and rental of recreational inner tubes on the Saturday during Buffalo Bill Days, typically one of the busiest days for creek usage.

The city used the July 27 shutdown as a data point to understand how much the “bring-your-own tube" crowd continues on Clear Creek when retailers and rental outfitters are prohibited from doing business.

Data showed that even with the city-imposed restriction, July 27 was still one of the busiest tubing days of the year. But traffic fell in line with more of a typical weekend tubing day, with personal tube usage remaining constant throughout the weekend.

So what does a typical tubing weekend look like?

The 2024 season revealed insightful trends in creek traffic, according to city officials, with the Vanover station leading in RFID counts. The highest camera counts were recorded at Billy Drew and Washington stations. For data gathered from July 1 to Sept. 3, camera counts ranged from 4,000 to 6,250. Notably, the top three days for camera activity were July 13, Aug. 4, and July 28, indicating popular times for tubing.

Peak activity occurred on Saturdays between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., with the highest traffic observed from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.

The city plans to use these findings to provide insights for managing creek traffic and enhancing safety measures during peak times.

City Manager Carley Lorentz acknowledged that while the previous years’ data provided some insight, it was not enough for her to rest her hat on comfortably.

“The AI capabilities were a game changer in our ability to collect a significant amount more of data,” Lorentz said. “I think we are really looking at future years — and seeing this as a year where we were able to collect the level of data and have the consistency that we want to see for comparison in future years.”