Modeling Event Travel Dynamics for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics Using Large-Scale Mobility Data

The 2028 Los Angeles Olympics will require innovative transportation strategies to move hundreds of thousands of travelers reliably to and from events. The challenge is that mega-events, such as the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, produce travel behaviors that differ from routine patterns and which exceed the scope of existing planning models. Traditional data sources, such as travel surveys and long-term regional transportation models, cannot capture short-term behavioral changes in response to major events. Large-scale human mobility data from smartphones, which continuously updates, now enable direct observation of how millions of people adjust their travel in and around major events in high spatial and temporal resolution, and can form the basis for forecasting models for future events. This project will leverage large-scale mobile data to build a foundation for modeling mega-event travel. The 2028 Olympics present an obvious application, and this research can inform the work of the White House Task Force on the 2028 Summer Olympics (established by Executive Order 14328). This project’s results will also inform innovations in transportation planning models well beyond the Olympics, pioneering adaptations of mobile data that with follow up work could model travel patterns from novel events such as evacuations or changes to infrastructure to accommodate safety, health, economic, or seasonal needs.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $45,000.00
• Contract Numbers:

  69A3551747109

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  Pacific Southwest Region University Transportation Center

  University of Southern California
  Los Angeles, CA  United States  90089
• Project Managers:

  Hong, Jennifer

• Performing Organizations:

  University of Southern California, Los Angeles

  University Park Campus
  Los Angeles, CA  United States  90089
• Principal Investigators:

  Horn, Abigail

• Start Date: 20260101
• Expected Completion Date: 20260630
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers Program

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Data analysis; Olympic games; Smartphones; Special events; Traffic forecasting; Traffic models; Travel behavior
• Geographic Terms: Los Angeles (California)
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; Transportation (General);

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01981630
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Pacific Southwest Region University Transportation Center
• Contract Numbers: 69A3551747109
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Mar 3 2026 4:26PM