Special Event Management

Description

Special events (sporting events, concerts, fairs, conventions, etc.) cause high levels of congestion; attendees overload streets, transit and highways near the venue. Unlike spontaneous events, planned special event traffic can be coordinated and problems minimized.

Major roads are typically most congested during special events because many unfamiliar drivers consider them the fastest routes. Spreading the traffic over the entire network, however, is the best way to reduce congestion on all roads. This can be accomplished with pre-event publicity, social media outlets, smartphone apps, changeable message boards, barricades, staff, and road closures.

Transit rail service is crucial for larger special event transportation plans; they can carry passenger loads that remove many vehicles from the road. Transit service can be increased during the high-volume periods before and after the event and connected to park-and-ride lots from off-site areas when facility parking is limited.

Planners and practitioners produce standard traffic plans for commonly occurring special events to reduce congestion with minimal effort. A combination of traffic handling resources and a number of communication channels can reduce congestion on roads surrounding an event for event guests and other community travelers.

Executive Summary

Target Market

Large Venues

Concert halls, convention centers, theaters, and sports arenas are sometimes located in close proximity to a freeway or other high-speed, high-volume arterial that allows easy access to the facility. Others are located in central business districts with roads that may be historic and have limited right of way.

These major roads often experience most of the congestion caused by special events. Event travel plans that use lower volume entrance and exit routes, modifies signal timing and incorporates temporary capacity techniques will increase the number of guests that can be handled.

Event Planners

Cooperation between transportation professionals and the event-planning companies can improve coordination of event scheduling, transportation plans and alternate routes to and from regular events.

How Will This Help?

Increases safety at the event location and on surrounding streets by reducing pedestrian/vehicle conflict points.
Decreases speed variations, and crashes on congested roads around the special event.
Improves traffic flow for both event and regular traffic by creating new, dedicated and/or alternative routes. Free-flow traffic is maintained (as possible) by redirecting travel lanes, altering traffic signal timing, and using police officer enforcement.
Increases public engagement through stakeholder meetings, attending community events, and social media outlets. Public engagement increases attendee awareness and encourages the use of all event transportation options.
Increases the overall event attendee satisfaction and garners local support for the future events.

Implementation Examples

Special event management is best used for regularly scheduled occurrences but can also be applied to one-time events. The best way to plan ahead is to participate in regularly scheduled planning meetings with city representatives, who typically approve event permits. Transportation representatives should be present at each meeting, where information about event dates, times, and street closures may be shared; this allows them to work with local city departments, including the police, to map out alternate routes and multimodal transportation options.

Application Techniques and Principles

The Federal Highway Administration handbook, Managing Travel for Planned Special Events, offers criteria for special event traffic planning.

Traffic managers, local government, and event organizers should work together for a successful management program. These groups should develop an integrated plan to handle the projected travel demands and ensure that the plan is implemented properly.

The management team should evaluate the overall effect that the large traffic influx may have on the local area, and hold stakeholder meetings before the event. The team should also communicate well between the different agencies. This group should continuously monitor the traffic on the event day and modify the plan in real-time to address problems.

The solution to problems may lie in other componenets of the gameday transportation plan. Greater investment in transit, walking and biking elements, for example, may assist with limited road capacity, limited parking at the facility, or lack of alternate routes for additional event traffic. Better communication with field staff can overcome limited infrastructure available to monitor traffic, and crashes, stalled vehicles or impaired drivers that can disrupt the plans.

If possible, agencies and event staff should monitor the roads with field staff, video cameras and portable traffic signs and signals. Local officials should also use automated information systems such as changeable message boards, lane control, and parking management. Typical programs include:

Detailed traffic control plans with device locations, signal operations, and staff location and responsibilities. These ensure that everyone works the plan.
Planned road closures to guide vehicles away from large pedestrian flows and onto roads that can handle large volumes.
Manual traffic controls to adjust to changing traffic characteristics.
Signal timing plans to allocate more green time to entry or exit traffic flows.
Temporary capacity improvements such as turn restrictions and reversible lanes to improve the capacity of the roads in and out of the venue.
Modified signal timing treatments for high-volume intersections to improve performance.
Smartphone apps, websites and social media to communicate plans and real-time conditions.
Accommodation for different event start times that change travel patterns into and away from the event (e.g., varying kickoff times for college football games).

Issues

Though there are few hurdles to implementing an event management strategy, a lack of interagency coordination can severely hinder its deployment. Public agencies responsible for traffic control and parking should coordinate with event staff and private stakeholders. One temptation for staff working at intersections is to deal with the local problems they see, rather than implementing an overall plan; staff may attempt to balance wait times for all traffic directions, rather then favoring a peak traffic flow.

Special consideration should be given to improving the speed of parking entry to remove potential bottlenecks; guests can be directed away from full parking areas to empty ones with staff, message signs and portable ‘wavy men’ attention-getting devices. Any plan should also separate pedestrians from auto traffic and control traffic on neighborhood streets. Engagement with fans and local stakeholders must be heavily promoted through community outreach programs, ticket-based connections (e.g., newsletters, email, season ticket inserts), stakeholder meetings, and social media outlets. Extensive public outreach will help fans and local groups utilize the services offered by the management team.

Who Is Responsible?

The responsibility of planning, coordinating, and implementing special event management falls on local governments, transportation providers, and event planners. These groups should discuss the equipment and information needs, evaluate the available road network and public transportation services for viable options and identify appropriate communication channels. Effective coordination between all agencies involved is crucial to implementing a successful special event.

Project Time Frame

The project time frame depends on the size of the event, infrastructure, and policies in place. The planning group should meet multiple times before the day of the event to evaluate all personnel and equipment needed for the event, test plan elements if possible and discuss the projected effects the traffic will have on the surrounding area. A typical special event management plan can be developed in a few weeks, but implementation depends on the size and scope of the event. Events that provide parking options to season ticket holders should have entry and exit plans in place before fans select parking options.

Cost

The cost of a special event management plan depends on the size of the event and the resources already available (e.g., nearby freeways or mass transit options). The cost may include street closure barricades and signs, officers to manage traffic, additional buses and/or trains for alternate modes, changeable message boards, and public information about the plan.

Data Needs

Planners should gauge the amount of data to successfully develop and implement a special event management program based on the event and the transportation plan. The planning group needs local traffic and transit data, the projected attendance of the event, and historical traffic count and travel time information. Non-traditional sources such as generally avauilable website maps showing speeds around events may be very useful in evaluating asnd communicating transportation plans. The planning group should also review the available signal technologies and timings to determine if system optimization or improvement is beneficial for the area around the event facility.

Special Event Management Best Practices

Type of location: Medium and large events; events in constrained areas.
Agency practices: Coordinate and collaborate with several groups. Monitor the event and respond to problems.
Frequency of reanalysis: After each event. Participants and agencies should be debriefed after each event to identify elements that worked well and areas that need improvement. Plans should be reworked before each event based on the expected situation.
Supporting policies or actions needed: Public transportation service that can be expanded to meet travel needs; roadway operations agencies that can address unusual demands.
Complementary strategies: Traffic management, parking management and travel option strategies.

For More Information

Crawford, J. A., T. B. Carlson, W. L. Eisele, and B. T. Kuhn. A Michigan Toolbox for Mitigating Traffic Congestion. Texas Transportation Institute, The Texas A&M University System, College Station, Texas, September 2011.

Federal Highway Administration. Managing Travel for Planned Special Events. Washington, D.C., September 2003.

Texas Transportation Institute. Mobility Improvement Checklist: Increasing System Efficiency, Vol. 2. The Texas A&M University System, College Station, Texas, September 2004.

Texas A&M Transportation Institute. Kyle Field Gameday Transportation Plan. The Texas A&M University System, College Station, Texas, 2015. http://tti.tamu.edu/kyle/

Transit Cooperative Research Program. Synthesis 75: Uses of Higher Capacity Buses in Transit Service. Washington, D.C., 2008.