As football fans gear up for a new season, a study by location and
navigation solutions leader TomTom reveals the worst and best game-day
traffic trends around professional stadiums. The latest TomTom study,
which compares the average traffic speeds on the immediate major
roadways leading to and around the 32 professional football stadiums to
the average speeds on non-game days, offers traffic insights for fans
across the nation.*
“On game days, or any day for that matter, drivers want to be able to
get to their destinations faster”
So which fans might end up spending more time in their car than in their
seats? According to the TomTom study, the 10 professional football
stadiums with the greatest traffic delays were based in Washington D.C.,
New England, Buffalo, Dallas, Jacksonville, Carolina, Miami, Tennessee,
Green Bay, and Atlanta, respectively. While most roadways experienced a
slowdown in speed of more than 30 percent, fans in Washington D.C., New
England and Buffalo drove 50 percent slower than typical speeds for the
same roads.
On the other hand, game day traffic is least affected in Oakland, San
Diego, New York, Seattle, San Francisco, Cleveland, Baltimore, Denver,
and Chicago, with slowdowns of less than 21 percent.
Additional traffic insights from the study include:
While one-third of the cities experience the slowest average speeds
two hours before games start, fans in cities like Oakland, Miami and
Cincinnati are heading to the stadium early as they experience the
worst traffic four hours prior.
Eight of the 10 professional football stadiums with the greatest
game-time delays are based on the East Coast. So, while fans on the
West Coast contemplate East Coast biases, it looks like they have the
upper hand when it comes to smoother traffic.
Fans in New Orleans and St. Louis can expect to experience the overall
slowest speeds an hour before the game, as they drive at roughly 10
miles per hour.
On game days, or any day for that matter, drivers want to be able to
get to their destinations faster, said Nhai Cao, senior product manager
at TomTom. With unique access to trillions of GPS measurements provided
by our community of over 45 million drivers on an anonymous, opt-in
basis, TomTom can consistently deliver our drivers access to the best
possible routes via our IQ Routes technology even on game days.
The results of this study were calculated using data from the TomTom
user community. TomTom compared anonymously contributed GPS measurements
and data during the home games for each stadium** for the 2009 season
with data from TomToms historical speed database, Speed Profiles.
Speed Profiles creates the most accurate view of historical traffic on
both primary and secondary roads using data over a two year period. This
data is incorporated on TomTom GPS devices as IQ Routes to guide drivers
away from congestion, not only on major highways but on all routes in
the road network.
* Traffic patterns were analyzed over a four hour period prior to
kickoff based in data from home games in the 2009 season. Results from
Arizona, Tampa Bay and Kansas City were not included due to limited
sample size.
**Data was not collected for games on neutral sites, i.e. Tampa versus
New England in London
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About TomTom N.V.
TomTom N.V. (AEX: TOM2) is the worlds
leading provider of location and navigation solutions. Headquartered in
the Netherlands it has over 3,000 employees worldwide. Over 45 million
people use its solutions every day, in the form of dedicated portable
navigation devices (PNDs), in-dash car systems or tracking and tracing
solutions for fleet management. In addition, hundreds of millions of
people use TomToms digital maps on the internet or mobile phones.
In 2009, TomTom reported 1.5 billion in revenues and a 340 million net
cash flow from operating activities. More information about TomTom can
be found at www.TomTom.com.
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Source: Business Wire