Scout operations during a Chiefs Champion Super Bowl parade

For Kansas Citians, a day filled with love, smiles, fun, and excitement turned chaotic, frightening, and tragic in an instant. In the middle of all of this, we want to acknowledge and highlight the role the KC Scout TMC and Emergency Response team played in supporting Kansas City’s parade day traffic needs. They helped prepare for, actively monitor, and provide responsive traffic operations throughout the day.

Preparations

Preparations for a parade celebrating a national win start long before the final game takes place. To put it in perspective, thirty-four local police agencies were utilized to provide the 850 officers needed to manage the security and escort needs. The Army National Guard provided transportation for Chiefs staff along the route. Over twenty streets and key areas had to be blocked off with barricades, portable bathroom locations setup, press areas and reunification areas established, backup emergency resources stationed near the route, and an Emergency Operations Center activated. Take into account previous attendance records ranging from 800,000 to 1 million spectators, many local business and schools closing for the day, unseasonably warm weather, and some hoping to spot Taylor Swift in the midst, the city prudently prepared for a record setting turnout.

Traffic Considerations

Special events have their own traffic patterns. Typically, there will be a noticeable increase in highway traffic nearest the event approximately one hour prior to start. However, the post event traffic is typically worse than pre-event traffic because everyone is exiting at once. For major sporting events with tailgating activities the pattern is different. With so many people arriving before gates open, pre-messaging is often implemented hours in advance of the event and the mass exodus looks like heavy rush hour travel. For a Chiefs Super Bowl parade, KC Scout prepares for the type of traffic seen during major sporting events.

Parade Day Traffic

This year’s Chiefs parade celebration produced just enough highway congestion to warrant the planned congestion messages be posted to highway signs but, only a fraction of the amount of congestion seen during regular peak travel times.  At its worst, pre-event traffic congestion was no more than two miles long (due in large part to a lane-blocking incident), and post-event traffic congestion was no more than one mile long. Post-event traffic demonstrated a staggered departure with two noticeable increases in congestion – one right after the parade ended and the other occurred when the celebration rally ended abruptly.

TMC Monitoring & Response

In a TMC, monitoring traffic is more involved and dynamic than one would assume. For KC Scout, it’s navigating approximately 400 internally controlled cameras, accessing (as needed) approximately 1,500 partner agency cameras, assessing sensor based live-traffic conditions, evaluating detection sources (i.e., law enforcement CAD feed, video analytic alerts, crowd-source application alerts), processing phone calls, and audibly monitoring local police agency radio channels. Through active monitoring the team can responsively verify and initiate traffic incident management (TIM) steps. TIM steps may include dispatching Emergency Response Operators (ERO), notifying area law enforcement agencies, coordinating with DOT elements, and posting motorist notifications. Day in and day out, they provide this service for the entire Kansas City metropolitan area and three rural interstate corridors. It’s a lot of information to process but, the team has refined their processes to effectively balance and manage the ever-fluxing demand together.

KC Scout Team

Through rush hours, crazy Midwest weather, police chases, and major sporting events they dig deep and make magic happen. KC Scout knows it’s not sunshine and smooth flowing traffic everyday but, but they show up for each other when it matters most. With these words we take a moment to recognize and honor the hard work of our Kansas City team members. What you do every day, the time and energy you put into your job, how you support the community – it matters. You matter.

Story credits: Mary Bundridge, KC Scout Training Coordinator