At the Intersection of Engineering and Psychology: How a diverse team manages special event traffic.
January 17, 2023 • 24 mins
Big-time athletic events can create big-time roadway gridlock. Experts game out the possibilities to navigate chaos – from the first car in, to the last one out.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Bernie Fette (host) (00:14):
Hello.
This is Thinking Transportation.
Conversations about how we getourselves and the things we need
from one place to another, andwhat may happen along the way.
I'm Bernie Fette with the TexasA&M Transportation Institute.
Special events come in manyshapes and sizes.
(00:35):
Whether it's a show by a worldfamous performer or a major
athletic contest, the wordspecial could also be used to
describe the traffic thatsurrounds those events.
Debbie Albert is a researchengineer at TTI with particular
experience in special eventtraffic management.
She's an expert in handling thechallenges that are associated
(00:58):
with those special events, andshe joins us today to talk about
what that entails.
Deb, thank you for setting asidesome time to talk with us,
especially on a day when you'reobviously in between special
event traffic assignments.
Debbie Albert (gues (01:13):
Absolutely.
I appreciate the opportunity tobe here with you.
Bernie Fette (01:18):
So as I was getting ready for our
conversation today, I was tryingto get a sense, almost explain
to myself what exactly it isyour expertise is, and these are
just my words, but it soundslike you're an expert in what we
might call non-daily trafficchallenges that have lots of
(01:38):
moving parts and lots ofminute-by-minute changes.
Please tell me if I have thatright or how you would describe
what you do-- especiallyexplained for people who are
unfamiliar with what trafficengineers do.
Debbie Albert (01:51):
I pretty much usually tell people I'm an
expert in managing chaos.
That might be an appropriate...
Bernie Fette (01:56):
Okay, great.
Debbie Albert (01:57):
...
appropriate term for what we do,um, or you know, give people a
good visualization of what wedo.
But it's a little bit, you know,traffic engineer, a little bit
traffic planner, partpsychologist, trying to figure
out what it is that people willdo and how they're going to be
arriving or departing events andthen even throw in a little bit
(02:17):
of marketing or publicinformation officer twist to it.
Bernie Fette (02:21):
Okay.
That sounds like no small taskat all, but can we start with a
definition from you?
Can you tell us what makes aspecial event special?
Maybe cite some examples.
Debbie Albert (02:33):
I think there's a couple of different things.
One is that generally events are, you know, something that
people are really lookingforward to, things like
graduation, like A&M is hostingtoday or you know, concerts or
the football games and peoplehave invested quite a bit of
their time and money into thoseand the parking part of it or
the traffic part of it can betheir first and last impression
(02:56):
and how well things go.
So if you think back to maybethe last time you went to an
event and how difficult or easyit was for you to get there,
that can really make or breakthat event.
And so what we do is kind ofunder a microscope for people
versus kind of your moreday-to-day traffic commuting.
The other thing I think thatmakes it a little bit different
(03:16):
is a lot of times you get peoplewho are doing things during
these events that they might notnormally do and so they may not
take the time or effort to goout and do some extra planning
when they're going to theseevents.
Um, you know, not checking theirtraffic app to make sure that
they know the directions of howto get to where they're going or
(03:37):
even planning and not cominguntil the last minute when they
need to plan on a little bit ofextra time or even stopping on
the side of the road to letpeople out of their car.
You know, most people wouldn'tdo that on the side of a roadway
when they're driving duringnormal daily conditions.
Bernie Fette (03:54):
It sounds like some people are expecting things
to be predictable when someonein a position like yours knows
that they're going to beanything but predictable.
Debbie Albert (04:03):
Yes, absolutely.
We do a lot of planning and thenhave to think on our feet and
respond or make changes based onwhat happens for that specific
event.
Bernie Fette (04:14):
Okay.
I think that the answer to thismight be obvious on some level,
but why is it that the trafficis so congested with these
events, the major universitygraduation ceremonies, concerts,
big sporting events?
Why is the traffic so congestedwith these events?
Not only once people get to theevent, but for everyone who's on
(04:38):
their way there?
Could you explain that a little?
Debbie Albert (04:41):
Well, I think what it is is we end up with
these kind of intense periods ofdemand and we kind of categorize
the events into two differentcategories.
You may have your events where afootball game for example,
everybody comes and arrives, youknow, kind of at the same time.
They all wanna be there for thebeginning of the football game
and then they all leave at thesame time at the end of the
(05:03):
football game.
But then you also have thecome-and-go events.
For example, in the city ofGlendale where I worked in
Arizona, we hosted the NFLExperience back in 2008.
And so you had people coming andgoing all day long.
Um, they weren't going to bethere just for that specific
timeframe of an event.
So you get these intense periodsof demand and they're different
(05:23):
for each of those two types ofevents.
And a lot of times the roadwaysand the operation systems, the
traffic signal systems aren'tmeant to handle those really
intense periods of traffic.
Bernie Fette (05:37):
And you were talking about demand, and maybe
to simplify this a little bitfor some people, if we look at
this as a supply and demandpicture, the demand that you're
talking about is the demand forroadway space and the supply is
just the amount of that spacethat's available?
Debbie Albert (05:53):
Well I think it's that and it's also time.
Think about a traffic signal.
There's only 60 seconds in aminute and if you have to divide
up the time that you're givingto each direction of traffic,
that may change depending onwhat the event is and how long
or how much time you wanna givepeople coming into the event
versus that background trafficor the people who are trying to
(06:14):
get around and do their dailybusiness.
Bernie Fette (06:17):
I'm glad you mentioned the background traffic
there because that's anotherthing I was wondering about.
Apart from the event that'scausing a lot of the chaos as
you describe it, you still havepeople every day trying to get
to other places that might besort of near the event or at
least near that chaos withinthat radius.
They might be going on an errandor to an appointment, but their
(06:40):
more mundane travel(if we couldcall it that) just adds to the
difficulty that you face.
Is that an accurate way oflooking at it?
Debbie Albert (06:47):
That certainly can contribute to it.
Again, if you think you knowfootball here at Kyle Field at
Texas A&M University, you know,we're trying to get everybody
into a certain area of thecampus.
Well if somebody is wanting togo out and do some grocery
shopping or meet friends beforea tailgate or meet friends off
(07:08):
campus, they may be going in theopposite direction of where
we're trying to move the massamounts of people.
And so that creates a specialchallenge we were talking about
earlier with this, what makes aspecial event special.
Bernie Fette (07:22):
Mm-hmm.
The answer to thisquestion might be a bit obvious
too, to some people, anyway, butthere are those who might
wonder, why don't you just buildwider highways and streets so
everybody can get to the biggame or the big concert or the
big event without so manytraffic headaches?
What do you say in response topeople with that question?
Debbie Albert (07:40):
Well, despite their names, freeways are not
actually free.
It does cost a lot of money tobe able to build the
infrastructure, the roadways,the traffic signals, even to run
some of the transit operationsthat we run for special events
that cost a lot of money to beable to operate or to build and
(08:01):
maintain.
And so we are part of the publicservice industry and we wanna do
good by the people who arepaying taxes and funding these
facilities.
And so it, it's just notfinancially practical to be able
to build the roadways as big aswhat you would need for these
(08:21):
special events.
Bernie Fette (08:22):
And not only the financial side of it, but then
there's also just the spaceissues and the environmental
issues that you would have todeal with in building roads that
big.
Right?
Debbie Albert (08:31):
Yeah.
Nobody wants to live next to the10-lane freeway or the giant
arterial street or major streetthat feeds these stadiums and
then if they're just sittingthere not used during a normal
day's traffic, it's just awaste.
Bernie Fette (08:48):
Right.
Okay.
Please walk us through what youdo when you tackle an assignment
like the ones that you work on.
Where do you start, when do youstart and how do you proceed
through the major steps on theway to D-day?
Debbie Albert (09:04):
It really does depend on the different type of
event we talked about earlier.
You've got these large specialevents that have everybody
coming at one time versus thecome-and-go event and you, so it
depends on how big the event,what type of the event it is.
Just for example, with KyleField, it's pretty much a
year-round ongoing thing.
(09:25):
We're meeting with peopleyear-round talking about what to
expect for the next season,where are we going to have to
adjust our plans?
But the intensity of thatreally, you know, starts to ramp
up in the late spring, earlysummer timeframe.
Just to give kind of an examplefor you, some of the major steps
(09:46):
or milestones that we gothrough, you know, identifying,
you know, what are the needs andexpectations, how much parking
is going to be needed, what arethe expectations as far as
getting people into and out ofthose parking spaces, is there a
priority that needs to be placedon certain areas?
Another key element isidentifying what the traffic
(10:09):
routes are to and from thoseparking spaces and in particular
those routes out of the parkingspaces.
You know, we wanna try andmaximize the efficiency in
getting people out of thoseparking spaces using different
things like contraflow laneswhere we may have traffic
running in the oppositedirection than it would normally
(10:30):
be running on the street.
Then if there's some availableor unused sections of roadway,
you know, those might be goodplaces to be able to put bus
routes to be able to move morepeople.
Those then culminate in thedevelopment of what we call
traffic control plans and thoseare the roadmaps, if you will,
of where you put each of thebarricades, where you put all of
(10:52):
the signs, where you put thestaff to be able to help direct
traffic.
Throughout the whole process,there's a lot of communications
and engagement with all sorts ofdifferent stakeholders.
It's not just the traffic peoplewho sit in an isolated room who
are developing the trafficplans.
We're talking to lawenforcement, we're talking to
the stakeholders, businessowners, the business community;
(11:16):
what are their needs?
And then that process is justkind of iterative over and over.
You develop your plans, you letpeople know what it is you're
planning to do, educate them onit, take their feedback and make
adjustments as needed.
Bernie Fette (11:30):
You do a really nice job of describing all of
this in a very systematic andlogical fashion and I know that
what you actually face once youare out there on the roadway and
watching as things unfold, thatit's not quite as neat.
I think it probably gets alittle bit closer to that chaos
(11:51):
that you were mentioningearlier.
Debbie Albert (11:54):
Uh, yes, we do start with a plan and we
actually try to come up with,you know, some scenarios that we
expect might happen so thatwe're prepared and can react
quicker if things don't goexactly the way we want them to.
But you do have to make splitdecisions.
We say don't fall in love withthe decision you make because
chances are you're going to bemaking a new decision as more
(12:16):
information becomes availableand you have to adjust to
whatever is thrown at you.
Bernie Fette (12:21):
Can you share some examples of the various
disruptions or the changes inconditions that you might face
when you're actually, you know,past the planning stage and
you're in the execution stage,maybe a, an example or two of
something that was unexpectedand how you and your team
managed to shift gears?
Debbie Albert (12:41):
So a great example is, you know, something
that you hope doesn't happen butis not necessarily unexpected
and that's just a crash.
I mean if we had a crash on oneof the major roads into or out
of the stadium either before orafter that can have a pretty
significant impact on how peopleare able to get to or from the
(13:02):
event.
And we've done things likemaking sure that we have extra
police officers in the area thatare assigned as kind of roamers
so that they can quickly respondto whatever that crash is.
Or coordinating with some of ourstakeholders, the the other
local communities in the area tomake sure that we have tow
(13:23):
trucks that are in closeproximity so that they can
respond again rapidly.
We wanna make sure everybody issafe, but then we also wanna
quickly clear the incident andget people moving in on their
way.
Other things would be liketraffic signal malfunctions, if
the power goes out, making surewe have technicians that are on
call to be able to respond tothose.
(13:44):
One of my favorite ones was froman Arizona, the very first
Fiesta Bowl we hosted.
The Budweiser Clydesdales showedup and didn't let anybody know
they were coming.
So where do you park theBudweiser Clydesdales and make
sure that they can help peoplehave the great experience that
we all know and love with thosesort of pageantry things that go
on with large events?
Bernie Fette (14:06):
You mentioned that example from your work in
Arizona.
I'm curious about what else youmight have picked up in your
previous gig at the City ofGlendale that you might have
been able to apply here.
I guess each of these events isdistinct or unique in its own
way, but maybe there are thingsthat they share in common.
Debbie Albert (14:26):
Yeah, I mean there are some kind of what I
would call maybe guidingprinciples.
Things like after the event, itmay not be intuitive to the
people who are leaving theevent, but you know, trying to
get people away from the stadiumor away from the parking areas
kind of as quickly as possible.
(14:46):
So you may end up having to sendpeople in the wrong direction of
what they would normally wannago because it's in everyone's
best interest to not crossvehicle paths.
We were talking earlier aboutcreating time and space, but
every time you have to stoppeople to allow a different
direction of travel flow, thatjust creates inefficiencies in
(15:07):
the system.
So kind of sending everybody outin a different direction.
We did a lot of that in Arizona.
They do a lot of that here,which I think helps make the
plan flow a lot smoother.
The use of command centers tomake sure that you're
communicating with everybody andletting everyone know what those
decisions are that you'remaking.
There's a lot of similarities uh, with those, the use of
(15:31):
reversible lanes or contraflowlanes such as what we do here on
Wellborn Road.
Normally Wellborn Road is twolanes in each direction with a
center turn lane.
For post football games, we havefour lanes headed south out of
town or away from the stadium.
We allow one lane to come in,but we try to move the majority
(15:51):
of the traffic away.
Those are some of the keyelements that you'll find
similar in a lot of differentvenues.
Bernie Fette (16:00):
Part of how you manage chaos.
Debbie Albert (16:02):
Yes.
One other thing would be kind ofthat close coordination and
collaboration with thestakeholders, law enforcement to
make sure everybody's on thesame page and we can all
respond.
Bernie Fette (16:13):
That's actually what I was going to ask you
about next, so I appreciate youtaking that turn.
I'm interested, since you'vealready talked about
coordinating with lawenforcement agencies in the
event of a crash and otherparties, can you talk a little
about the challenges that don'thave anything to do with traffic
-- like the ones that emergewhen you have close to a dozen
(16:36):
different jurisdictions orgovernment layers, all with some
degree of ownership in makingthese events a success?
Debbie Albert (16:45):
Yeah, I think it's key to really first
recognize that there aredifferent needs or there are
different competing needs andit's not that one is right or
wrong, it's just everybody has adifferent perspective.
And so really working hard tobring everybody together to try
and understand what those needsare and do your best to get to
(17:08):
yes.
You may not necessarily alwaysbe able to say yes or you may
not be able to give them exactlywhat they want, but being able
to deliver on what their needsare and, and get to that yes.
We have great partnerships withall of the stakeholders and it's
because of years and years ofthat close coordination and
(17:29):
follow through on what you sayyou're going to deliver is key
to making those partnerships andmaking those relationships work.
Bernie Fette (17:38):
I'm not asking you to run through necessarily a
long list, but whenever we talkabout stakeholders, I'm
wondering if the peoplelistening could get a sense from
you about how many organizationsand different layers of players
that we're talking about here.
Could you just give us a senseof who we're talking about?
Debbie Albert (17:58):
Well, in the case of the Kyle Field Transportation
Plan, you've got the universitypartners, which is
transportation services,athletics, university PD,
university emergency management,the marketing and communication.
So I mean there's, there's abunch of folks just within the
university.
Then when you step outside theuniversity footprint, you start
(18:21):
to work with the City of CollegeStation and their law
enforcement, their firedepartment, then Texas
Department of Transportation,the City of Bryan, local
merchants and businesses, theChamber of Commerce.
It just kind of expandsexponentially in, in addition to
working with them to develop theplan to try and meet everyone's
(18:42):
needs, they're also greatresources and being able to
communicate to all of theirdifferent channels what the plan
is, why it is that way.
And so it really is a two-waystreet.
Bernie Fette (18:55):
Where else have you been able to take what
you've learned here; well,learned here and your previous
uh, position in Arizona?
Where else have you been able totake this expertise beyond
football game traffic?
Debbie Albert (19:10):
Obviously, A&M; they host somewhere in the
neighborhood of 200-ishdifferent events each year, so
football is usually the highestprofile of them, but things like
graduations, baseball games,basketball games, so all of
those special events.
But then beyond that, there's alot of things that happen in the
(19:31):
community that are not specialevents, but they kind of act
like'em, like large constructionprojects.
And so we've been able to takethese relationships and the
tools that we've been able todevelop and apply them to those
construction projects and makingsure that we're coordinating
with our partners andcommunicating out to the public
(19:52):
what's happening to them orwhat's happening for them
related to traffic.
Bernie Fette (19:57):
What about things outside of the home base here?
I think I recall that you'vehelped people with events like
the San Antonio Rodeo or maybeother sporting events elsewhere.
Debbie Albert (20:08):
Yeah, there are folks that are on our team that
are working with the San AntonioRodeo, who've gone to other SEC
schools to be able to help themcome up with ideas for their
traffic plans.
I've worked closely with theSuper Bowl folks on different
traffic plans, so there's just avariety of of different users.
Bernie Fette (20:29):
You sound like you almost understated that Super
Bowl reference a little bit.
That sounds like a big deal.
How did they come to contactyou?
Did they just hear through thegrapevine, what a great job you
guys were doing, managing chaosand said, Ooh, we've got some
chaotic mess here too that weneed some help with?
Debbie Albert (20:45):
Well, that really comes back through the work with
the City of Glendale and becausewe've hosted a number of Super
Bowls and the company thatprovided our shuttle service,
our shuttle operations at theCity of Glendale, they were the
transportation consultant forthe NFL, and so we've just
maintained relationships withthem.
Bernie Fette (21:05):
I'm wondering what you might have expected me to
ask you about that I haven'tasked you about.
Debbie Albert (21:12):
One thing that we really try to do as part of our
special event planning is toreally encourage people to take
ownership of a kind of theirevent or their experience in
traveling to, whether it's afootball game or graduation or
concert, and to take some timeto do a little bit of planning.
(21:36):
And that's that messaging andmanaging expectations I think is
really one of the key thingsthat the engineers don't
necessarily typically include aspart of their toolbox.
And so, you know, if you're in aposition to be developing plans
for these large special events,keep that communication and
(21:58):
outreach in the forefront ofyour mind.
And repeat and repeat and repeaton that element.
Bernie Fette (22:04):
My last question: what is it that motivates you to
show up to work every day?
Debbie Albert (22:11):
That's a great question.
You know, it's a lot of fun.
I said earlier we are under amicroscope.
It's so, you know, you can takea lot of heat on it, but it's a
lot of fun to be able to workwith an amazing team and find
success in being able to deliveron your plans.
Bernie Fette (22:28):
And where else do you get to have a job that
actually somehow from what youwere saying earlier, brings
notes of psychology into themix?
Debbie Albert (22:39):
Yeah,, my
mom told me when I was studying
school that I needed to stayaway from the"ologies."
Bernie Fette (22:44):
.
Well, I'm sure she would beproud, nonetheless.
Debbie Albert, research engineerat TTI and an expert in managing
roadway chaos.
Thank you, Debbie, so much forsharing your time and expertise
with us.
We appreciate it.
Debbie Albert (23:01):
Thanks, Bernie.
Bernie Fette (23:04):
Big-time events generate big-time traffic.
Our transportation networkssimply weren't built for those
times when more than 100,000people want to get to and from
the same gathering all at prettymuch the same time.
Even when traffic planners aredoing their best to keep traffic
moving forward, there's ampleopportunity for things to go
(23:28):
sideways.
It takes a diverse team, highlyskilled not only in traffic
planning, but also incommunication, to make a special
event successful from the firstcar in to the last one out.
Thank you for listening.
Please take just a minute togive us a review, subscribe and
(23:50):
share this episode.
And we hope you'll join us againnext time for a conversation
with Tom Scullion, a pavementengineer and road doctor, taking
a forensic approach to find thereasons why some roadways fail
to last as long as they should.
Thinking Transportation is aproduction of the Texas A&M
(24:10):
Transportation Institute, amember of the Texas A&M
University System.
The show is edited and producedby Chris Pourteau.
I'm your writer and host, BernieFette.
Thanks again for listening.
We'll see you next time.
Hello.
This is Thinking Transportation.
Conversations about how we getourselves and the things we need
from one place to another, andwhat may happen along the way.
I'm Bernie Fette with the TexasA&M Transportation Institute.
Special events come in manyshapes and sizes.
(00:35):
Whether it's a show by a worldfamous performer or a major
athletic contest, the wordspecial could also be used to
describe the traffic thatsurrounds those events.
Debbie Albert is a researchengineer at TTI with particular
experience in special eventtraffic management.
She's an expert in handling thechallenges that are associated
(00:58):
with those special events, andshe joins us today to talk about
what that entails.
Deb, thank you for setting asidesome time to talk with us,
especially on a day when you'reobviously in between special
event traffic assignments.
Debbie Albert (gues (01:13):
Absolutely.
I appreciate the opportunity tobe here with you.
Bernie Fette (01:18):
So as I was getting ready for our
conversation today, I was tryingto get a sense, almost explain
to myself what exactly it isyour expertise is, and these are
just my words, but it soundslike you're an expert in what we
might call non-daily trafficchallenges that have lots of
(01:38):
moving parts and lots ofminute-by-minute changes.
Please tell me if I have thatright or how you would describe
what you do-- especiallyexplained for people who are
unfamiliar with what trafficengineers do.
Debbie Albert (01:51):
I pretty much usually tell people I'm an
expert in managing chaos.
That might be an appropriate...
Bernie Fette (01:56):
Okay, great.
Debbie Albert (01:57):
...
appropriate term for what we do,um, or you know, give people a
good visualization of what wedo.
But it's a little bit, you know,traffic engineer, a little bit
traffic planner, partpsychologist, trying to figure
out what it is that people willdo and how they're going to be
arriving or departing events andthen even throw in a little bit
(02:17):
of marketing or publicinformation officer twist to it.
Bernie Fette (02:21):
Okay.
That sounds like no small taskat all, but can we start with a
definition from you?
Can you tell us what makes aspecial event special?
Maybe cite some examples.
Debbie Albert (02:33):
I think there's a couple of different things.
One is that generally events are, you know, something that
people are really lookingforward to, things like
graduation, like A&M is hostingtoday or you know, concerts or
the football games and peoplehave invested quite a bit of
their time and money into thoseand the parking part of it or
the traffic part of it can betheir first and last impression
(02:56):
and how well things go.
So if you think back to maybethe last time you went to an
event and how difficult or easyit was for you to get there,
that can really make or breakthat event.
And so what we do is kind ofunder a microscope for people
versus kind of your moreday-to-day traffic commuting.
The other thing I think thatmakes it a little bit different
(03:16):
is a lot of times you get peoplewho are doing things during
these events that they might notnormally do and so they may not
take the time or effort to goout and do some extra planning
when they're going to theseevents.
Um, you know, not checking theirtraffic app to make sure that
they know the directions of howto get to where they're going or
(03:37):
even planning and not cominguntil the last minute when they
need to plan on a little bit ofextra time or even stopping on
the side of the road to letpeople out of their car.
You know, most people wouldn'tdo that on the side of a roadway
when they're driving duringnormal daily conditions.
Bernie Fette (03:54):
It sounds like some people are expecting things
to be predictable when someonein a position like yours knows
that they're going to beanything but predictable.
Debbie Albert (04:03):
Yes, absolutely.
We do a lot of planning and thenhave to think on our feet and
respond or make changes based onwhat happens for that specific
event.
Bernie Fette (04:14):
Okay.
I think that the answer to thismight be obvious on some level,
but why is it that the trafficis so congested with these
events, the major universitygraduation ceremonies, concerts,
big sporting events?
Why is the traffic so congestedwith these events?
Not only once people get to theevent, but for everyone who's on
(04:38):
their way there?
Could you explain that a little?
Debbie Albert (04:41):
Well, I think what it is is we end up with
these kind of intense periods ofdemand and we kind of categorize
the events into two differentcategories.
You may have your events where afootball game for example,
everybody comes and arrives, youknow, kind of at the same time.
They all wanna be there for thebeginning of the football game
and then they all leave at thesame time at the end of the
(05:03):
football game.
But then you also have thecome-and-go events.
For example, in the city ofGlendale where I worked in
Arizona, we hosted the NFLExperience back in 2008.
And so you had people coming andgoing all day long.
Um, they weren't going to bethere just for that specific
timeframe of an event.
So you get these intense periodsof demand and they're different
(05:23):
for each of those two types ofevents.
And a lot of times the roadwaysand the operation systems, the
traffic signal systems aren'tmeant to handle those really
intense periods of traffic.
Bernie Fette (05:37):
And you were talking about demand, and maybe
to simplify this a little bitfor some people, if we look at
this as a supply and demandpicture, the demand that you're
talking about is the demand forroadway space and the supply is
just the amount of that spacethat's available?
Debbie Albert (05:53):
Well I think it's that and it's also time.
Think about a traffic signal.
There's only 60 seconds in aminute and if you have to divide
up the time that you're givingto each direction of traffic,
that may change depending onwhat the event is and how long
or how much time you wanna givepeople coming into the event
versus that background trafficor the people who are trying to
(06:14):
get around and do their dailybusiness.
Bernie Fette (06:17):
I'm glad you mentioned the background traffic
there because that's anotherthing I was wondering about.
Apart from the event that'scausing a lot of the chaos as
you describe it, you still havepeople every day trying to get
to other places that might besort of near the event or at
least near that chaos withinthat radius.
They might be going on an errandor to an appointment, but their
(06:40):
more mundane travel(if we couldcall it that) just adds to the
difficulty that you face.
Is that an accurate way oflooking at it?
Debbie Albert (06:47):
That certainly can contribute to it.
Again, if you think you knowfootball here at Kyle Field at
Texas A&M University, you know,we're trying to get everybody
into a certain area of thecampus.
Well if somebody is wanting togo out and do some grocery
shopping or meet friends beforea tailgate or meet friends off
(07:08):
campus, they may be going in theopposite direction of where
we're trying to move the massamounts of people.
And so that creates a specialchallenge we were talking about
earlier with this, what makes aspecial event special.
Bernie Fette (07:22):
Mm-hmm.
too, to some people, anyway, butthere are those who might
wonder, why don't you just buildwider highways and streets so
everybody can get to the biggame or the big concert or the
big event without so manytraffic headaches?
What do you say in response topeople with that question?
Debbie Albert (07:40):
Well, despite their names, freeways are not
actually free.
It does cost a lot of money tobe able to build the
infrastructure, the roadways,the traffic signals, even to run
some of the transit operationsthat we run for special events
that cost a lot of money to beable to operate or to build and
(08:01):
maintain.
And so we are part of the publicservice industry and we wanna do
good by the people who arepaying taxes and funding these
facilities.
And so it, it's just notfinancially practical to be able
to build the roadways as big aswhat you would need for these
(08:21):
special events.
Bernie Fette (08:22):
And not only the financial side of it, but then
there's also just the spaceissues and the environmental
issues that you would have todeal with in building roads that
big.
Right?
Debbie Albert (08:31):
Yeah.
Nobody wants to live next to the10-lane freeway or the giant
arterial street or major streetthat feeds these stadiums and
then if they're just sittingthere not used during a normal
day's traffic, it's just awaste.
Bernie Fette (08:48):
Right.
Okay.
Please walk us through what youdo when you tackle an assignment
like the ones that you work on.
Where do you start, when do youstart and how do you proceed
through the major steps on theway to D-day?
Debbie Albert (09:04):
It really does depend on the different type of
event we talked about earlier.
You've got these large specialevents that have everybody
coming at one time versus thecome-and-go event and you, so it
depends on how big the event,what type of the event it is.
Just for example, with KyleField, it's pretty much a
year-round ongoing thing.
(09:25):
We're meeting with peopleyear-round talking about what to
expect for the next season,where are we going to have to
adjust our plans?
But the intensity of thatreally, you know, starts to ramp
up in the late spring, earlysummer timeframe.
Just to give kind of an examplefor you, some of the major steps
(09:46):
or milestones that we gothrough, you know, identifying,
you know, what are the needs andexpectations, how much parking
is going to be needed, what arethe expectations as far as
getting people into and out ofthose parking spaces, is there a
priority that needs to be placedon certain areas?
Another key element isidentifying what the traffic
(10:09):
routes are to and from thoseparking spaces and in particular
those routes out of the parkingspaces.
You know, we wanna try andmaximize the efficiency in
getting people out of thoseparking spaces using different
things like contraflow laneswhere we may have traffic
running in the oppositedirection than it would normally
(10:30):
be running on the street.
Then if there's some availableor unused sections of roadway,
you know, those might be goodplaces to be able to put bus
routes to be able to move morepeople.
Those then culminate in thedevelopment of what we call
traffic control plans and thoseare the roadmaps, if you will,
of where you put each of thebarricades, where you put all of
(10:52):
the signs, where you put thestaff to be able to help direct
traffic.
Throughout the whole process,there's a lot of communications
and engagement with all sorts ofdifferent stakeholders.
It's not just the traffic peoplewho sit in an isolated room who
are developing the trafficplans.
We're talking to lawenforcement, we're talking to
the stakeholders, businessowners, the business community;
(11:16):
what are their needs?
And then that process is justkind of iterative over and over.
You develop your plans, you letpeople know what it is you're
planning to do, educate them onit, take their feedback and make
adjustments as needed.
Bernie Fette (11:30):
You do a really nice job of describing all of
this in a very systematic andlogical fashion and I know that
what you actually face once youare out there on the roadway and
watching as things unfold, thatit's not quite as neat.
I think it probably gets alittle bit closer to that chaos
(11:51):
that you were mentioningearlier.
Debbie Albert (11:54):
Uh, yes, we do start with a plan and we
actually try to come up with,you know, some scenarios that we
expect might happen so thatwe're prepared and can react
quicker if things don't goexactly the way we want them to.
But you do have to make splitdecisions.
We say don't fall in love withthe decision you make because
chances are you're going to bemaking a new decision as more
(12:16):
information becomes availableand you have to adjust to
whatever is thrown at you.
Bernie Fette (12:21):
Can you share some examples of the various
disruptions or the changes inconditions that you might face
when you're actually, you know,past the planning stage and
you're in the execution stage,maybe a, an example or two of
something that was unexpectedand how you and your team
managed to shift gears?
Debbie Albert (12:41):
So a great example is, you know, something
that you hope doesn't happen butis not necessarily unexpected
and that's just a crash.
I mean if we had a crash on oneof the major roads into or out
of the stadium either before orafter that can have a pretty
significant impact on how peopleare able to get to or from the
(13:02):
event.
And we've done things likemaking sure that we have extra
police officers in the area thatare assigned as kind of roamers
so that they can quickly respondto whatever that crash is.
Or coordinating with some of ourstakeholders, the the other
local communities in the area tomake sure that we have tow
(13:23):
trucks that are in closeproximity so that they can
respond again rapidly.
We wanna make sure everybody issafe, but then we also wanna
quickly clear the incident andget people moving in on their
way.
Other things would be liketraffic signal malfunctions, if
the power goes out, making surewe have technicians that are on
call to be able to respond tothose.
(13:44):
One of my favorite ones was froman Arizona, the very first
Fiesta Bowl we hosted.
The Budweiser Clydesdales showedup and didn't let anybody know
they were coming.
So where do you park theBudweiser Clydesdales and make
sure that they can help peoplehave the great experience that
we all know and love with thosesort of pageantry things that go
on with large events?
Bernie Fette (14:06):
You mentioned that example from your work in
Arizona.
I'm curious about what else youmight have picked up in your
previous gig at the City ofGlendale that you might have
been able to apply here.
I guess each of these events isdistinct or unique in its own
way, but maybe there are thingsthat they share in common.
Debbie Albert (14:26):
Yeah, I mean there are some kind of what I
would call maybe guidingprinciples.
Things like after the event, itmay not be intuitive to the
people who are leaving theevent, but you know, trying to
get people away from the stadiumor away from the parking areas
kind of as quickly as possible.
(14:46):
So you may end up having to sendpeople in the wrong direction of
what they would normally wannago because it's in everyone's
best interest to not crossvehicle paths.
We were talking earlier aboutcreating time and space, but
every time you have to stoppeople to allow a different
direction of travel flow, thatjust creates inefficiencies in
(15:07):
the system.
So kind of sending everybody outin a different direction.
We did a lot of that in Arizona.
They do a lot of that here,which I think helps make the
plan flow a lot smoother.
The use of command centers tomake sure that you're
communicating with everybody andletting everyone know what those
decisions are that you'remaking.
There's a lot of similarities uh, with those, the use of
(15:31):
reversible lanes or contraflowlanes such as what we do here on
Wellborn Road.
Normally Wellborn Road is twolanes in each direction with a
center turn lane.
For post football games, we havefour lanes headed south out of
town or away from the stadium.
We allow one lane to come in,but we try to move the majority
(15:51):
of the traffic away.
Those are some of the keyelements that you'll find
similar in a lot of differentvenues.
Bernie Fette (16:00):
Part of how you manage chaos.
Debbie Albert (16:02):
Yes.
One other thing would be kind ofthat close coordination and
collaboration with thestakeholders, law enforcement to
make sure everybody's on thesame page and we can all
respond.
Bernie Fette (16:13):
That's actually what I was going to ask you
about next, so I appreciate youtaking that turn.
I'm interested, since you'vealready talked about
coordinating with lawenforcement agencies in the
event of a crash and otherparties, can you talk a little
about the challenges that don'thave anything to do with traffic
-- like the ones that emergewhen you have close to a dozen
(16:36):
different jurisdictions orgovernment layers, all with some
degree of ownership in makingthese events a success?
Debbie Albert (16:45):
Yeah, I think it's key to really first
recognize that there aredifferent needs or there are
different competing needs andit's not that one is right or
wrong, it's just everybody has adifferent perspective.
And so really working hard tobring everybody together to try
and understand what those needsare and do your best to get to
(17:08):
yes.
You may not necessarily alwaysbe able to say yes or you may
not be able to give them exactlywhat they want, but being able
to deliver on what their needsare and, and get to that yes.
We have great partnerships withall of the stakeholders and it's
because of years and years ofthat close coordination and
(17:29):
follow through on what you sayyou're going to deliver is key
to making those partnerships andmaking those relationships work.
Bernie Fette (17:38):
I'm not asking you to run through necessarily a
long list, but whenever we talkabout stakeholders, I'm
wondering if the peoplelistening could get a sense from
you about how many organizationsand different layers of players
that we're talking about here.
Could you just give us a senseof who we're talking about?
Debbie Albert (17:58):
Well, in the case of the Kyle Field Transportation
Plan, you've got the universitypartners, which is
transportation services,athletics, university PD,
university emergency management,the marketing and communication.
So I mean there's, there's abunch of folks just within the
university.
Then when you step outside theuniversity footprint, you start
(18:21):
to work with the City of CollegeStation and their law
enforcement, their firedepartment, then Texas
Department of Transportation,the City of Bryan, local
merchants and businesses, theChamber of Commerce.
It just kind of expandsexponentially in, in addition to
working with them to develop theplan to try and meet everyone's
(18:42):
needs, they're also greatresources and being able to
communicate to all of theirdifferent channels what the plan
is, why it is that way.
And so it really is a two-waystreet.
Bernie Fette (18:55):
Where else have you been able to take what
you've learned here; well,learned here and your previous
uh, position in Arizona?
Where else have you been able totake this expertise beyond
football game traffic?
Debbie Albert (19:10):
Obviously, A&M; they host somewhere in the
neighborhood of 200-ishdifferent events each year, so
football is usually the highestprofile of them, but things like
graduations, baseball games,basketball games, so all of
those special events.
But then beyond that, there's alot of things that happen in the
(19:31):
community that are not specialevents, but they kind of act
like'em, like large constructionprojects.
And so we've been able to takethese relationships and the
tools that we've been able todevelop and apply them to those
construction projects and makingsure that we're coordinating
with our partners andcommunicating out to the public
(19:52):
what's happening to them orwhat's happening for them
related to traffic.
Bernie Fette (19:57):
What about things outside of the home base here?
I think I recall that you'vehelped people with events like
the San Antonio Rodeo or maybeother sporting events elsewhere.
Debbie Albert (20:08):
Yeah, there are folks that are on our team that
are working with the San AntonioRodeo, who've gone to other SEC
schools to be able to help themcome up with ideas for their
traffic plans.
I've worked closely with theSuper Bowl folks on different
traffic plans, so there's just avariety of of different users.
Bernie Fette (20:29):
You sound like you almost understated that Super
Bowl reference a little bit.
That sounds like a big deal.
How did they come to contactyou?
Did they just hear through thegrapevine, what a great job you
guys were doing, managing chaosand said, Ooh, we've got some
chaotic mess here too that weneed some help with?
Debbie Albert (20:45):
Well, that really comes back through the work with
the City of Glendale and becausewe've hosted a number of Super
Bowls and the company thatprovided our shuttle service,
our shuttle operations at theCity of Glendale, they were the
transportation consultant forthe NFL, and so we've just
maintained relationships withthem.
Bernie Fette (21:05):
I'm wondering what you might have expected me to
ask you about that I haven'tasked you about.
Debbie Albert (21:12):
One thing that we really try to do as part of our
special event planning is toreally encourage people to take
ownership of a kind of theirevent or their experience in
traveling to, whether it's afootball game or graduation or
concert, and to take some timeto do a little bit of planning.
(21:36):
And that's that messaging andmanaging expectations I think is
really one of the key thingsthat the engineers don't
necessarily typically include aspart of their toolbox.
And so, you know, if you're in aposition to be developing plans
for these large special events,keep that communication and
(21:58):
outreach in the forefront ofyour mind.
And repeat and repeat and repeaton that element.
Bernie Fette (22:04):
My last question: what is it that motivates you to
show up to work every day?
Debbie Albert (22:11):
That's a great question.
You know, it's a lot of fun.
I said earlier we are under amicroscope.
It's so, you know, you can takea lot of heat on it, but it's a
lot of fun to be able to workwith an amazing team and find
success in being able to deliveron your plans.
Bernie Fette (22:28):
And where else do you get to have a job that
actually somehow from what youwere saying earlier, brings
notes of psychology into themix?
Debbie Albert (22:39):
Yeah,
school that I needed to stayaway from the"ologies."
Bernie Fette (22:44):
Well, I'm sure she would beproud, nonetheless.
Debbie Albert, research engineerat TTI and an expert in managing
roadway chaos.
Thank you, Debbie, so much forsharing your time and expertise
with us.
We appreciate it.
Debbie Albert (23:01):
Thanks, Bernie.
Bernie Fette (23:04):
Big-time events generate big-time traffic.
Our transportation networkssimply weren't built for those
times when more than 100,000people want to get to and from
the same gathering all at prettymuch the same time.
Even when traffic planners aredoing their best to keep traffic
moving forward, there's ampleopportunity for things to go
(23:28):
sideways.
It takes a diverse team, highlyskilled not only in traffic
planning, but also incommunication, to make a special
event successful from the firstcar in to the last one out.
Thank you for listening.
Please take just a minute togive us a review, subscribe and
(23:50):
share this episode.
And we hope you'll join us againnext time for a conversation
with Tom Scullion, a pavementengineer and road doctor, taking
a forensic approach to find thereasons why some roadways fail
to last as long as they should.
Thinking Transportation is aproduction of the Texas A&M
(24:10):
Transportation Institute, amember of the Texas A&M
University System.
The show is edited and producedby Chris Pourteau.
I'm your writer and host, BernieFette.
Thanks again for listening.
We'll see you next time.
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