01628717

Component

City and State agencies often need guidance to manage traffic demand during special events. The demand and supply uncertainty during a major event makes it challenging to identify an optimal demand management strategy. Hence, agencies take a conventional approach, developing inflexible plans that inherently assume a high demand and congested conditions. Often, perceived supply constraints on the day of rare special events (not football games) leads to reduced demand, resulting in uncongested conditions. This was the case when Pope Francis visited various cities across the US, and later the border city of Juárez near El Paso on the US- Mexico border. This study analyzed the impact of the Papal Visit on El Paso’s transportation system. The results found mostly uncongested traffic conditions and increased travel time reliability when compared with regular weekdays and weekends. People preferred walking and transit over using private vehicles to cross the border to attend either the mass in Juárez or the event in El Paso. The developed methodology and results will be useful for city, state and federal agencies in El Paso to manage travel demand during similar special events.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ABE50 Standing Committee on Transportation Demand Management. Alternate title: Measuring Multimodal Impacts on Transportation System of El Paso, Texas, During Papal Visit to the U.S.-Mexico Border City

01618707

17-03303

English

19p

2017

Transportation Research Board 96th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; Maps; References

Data analysis; Impacts; Mode choice; Multimodal transportation; Special events; Travel demand management

Big data

El Paso (Texas)

Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Pedestrians and Bicyclists; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2017 Paper #17-03303

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Dec 8 2016 11:14AM