Eras Tour vs. Soccer’s Big Tournament: At MetLife Stadium Are We Ever, Ever Getting …. Out of This Parking Lot?

For our World Cup traffic analysis, we went on a little side quest to analyze New York/New Jersey MetLife stadium traffic at a recent Saturday World Cup game compared to traffic just over a year earlier on a Saturday in May during Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.  MetLife stadium is located in one of the most congested corridors in the country where heavy traffic is already common, so handling an additional influx of roadway users poses the potential for carmaggedon.

Yet, during the Eras Tour, when StreetLight analyzed all U.S. stadiums’ traffic performance the data showed that MetLife performed far better than other tour hosts. The heavy emphasis on transit in the New York City region during the concert likely helped the stadium avoid far worse congestion. 

For the World Cup, MetLife stadium and transportation agencies in the region are handling passenger movement differently than during the Eras Tour. As with any event, agencies confront a unique fan attendance profile, as well as nuances around the day of the event. For a multi-week tournament like the World Cup with a heavy influx of international visitors, it has been an all-hands on-deck effort to manage crowds and congestion. 

For the World Cup games at MetLife, NJTransit is increasing service but restricting rail access only to World Cup ticket holders who pay $98 roundtrip, compared to a typical ticket price of $12.90. Anyone else traveling in the area during the hours around the game cannot access passenger rail, giving people few options besides driving to get to their destination. The transit strategy contrasts with the Eras Tour when train access to MetLife was promoted and anyone could ride the trains, whether they were a ticket holder or not. Additionally, the ride share dropoff location was moved about a mile from the stadium for the World Cup.

StreetLight found that during the Saturday, June 13 World Cup game the route to the rideshare location during egress hours when event traffic is typically at its worst, clocked an average travel time of 1 hour 16 minutes, up from a typical Saturday travel time of about 8 minutes. That’s a 7x increase.

Compare that to a 4x increase in traffic during the Saturday MetLife Eras Tour concert when travel time from Manhattan to the rideshare dropoff location took about 1 hour and 2 minutes, up from just under 13 minutes on a typical Saturday during the same month. A significant increase in traffic to be sure. And yet a much better performance as compared to the World Cup game.

During the first MetLife World Cup match, there’s no doubt traffic created a cruel summer for drivers. But with more matches to go, we’ll be watching to see if traffic can still shake it off.

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