What The LA Marathon Can Teach Us About Traffic Management

As we approach another “stadium-to-the-sea” LA Marathon, David Sadeghi explains why major sporting and entertainment events can serve as teachable exercises for city traffic managers.

With more than 24,000 pro runners, jogging enthusiasts, fundraisers, volunteers and local residents in need of a reason to (for once) not use their cars all descending upon the Dodger Stadium starting line of the Skechers-sponsored, 33rd annual Los Angeles Marathon this Sunday, extreme traffic congestion is a guaranteed pain point for the remaining 3.95 million people who won’t be participating.

But while planned street closures across the city will surely mean gridlocked arterial roads and nearby freeways for the approximately six-hour, cross-city running spree, for traffic management enthusiasts major events like these present the perfect opportunity to get in the hot seat and make real-time adjustments to optimize mobility and make conditions as bearable as possible.

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Which is why for events like the 2018 Genesis Open golfing tournament in Santa Monica, Taylor Swift and Coldplay concerts in the City of Pasadena, and this weekend’s LA Marathon, the men and women in Iteris’ Transportation Systems group have been staffing traffic management centers (TMCs) across southern California.

With cities around LA often spending upwards of 700 hours a year staffing their TMCs and external command centers during special events, a very regimented approach to training, calibration and reporting is essential to setting expectations and harnessing as much valuable data and insights as possible during the staff extension period.

The benefits of using these events as an opportunity to leverage Iteris’ expertise are as follows:

• Real-time traffic signal timing optimization
  
  Due to the Transportation Systems group’s extensive knowledge of surveillance and traffic management software, Iteris will monitor live traffic conditions and make timing modifications in real time as required.
  
  
• Monitoring and alleviating congestion around entry and exit points
  
  To make travel to and from the special event as smooth and efficient as possible, Iteris will assist with specific monitoring of inbound and outbound traffic to ensure any bottlenecks are either pre-empted or cleared quickly.
  
  
• Facilitating the dissemination of up-to-date traffic advice to the public
  
  By collaborating with any agency departments or project stakeholders who are involved in the special event, we can synchronize efforts to make changes to message boards that disseminate information to the public of closures or routing information during the events or construction.
  
  
• Documenting everything
  
  All observations and modifications undertaken during the event will be documented and analyzed before a final report is provided to benefit the agency for future events.
  
  

The Bottom Line

While running enthusiasts and those in need of a high-visibility challenge to raise money for the charities they hold dear can use occasions like the LA Marathon to further their own personal goals, the opportunities extreme events like these present to traffic management experts serve as vast sources of actionable data and insights that can inform TMC strategies for entire cities for many years to come.

About the Author:

David Sadeghi is digital marketing manager at Iteris.

Connect with David on Twitter and LinkedIn.