Soccer fans attending FIFA World Cup 2026 matches in Boston, Massachusetts, Houston, Texas and Mexico City are likely to find getting to and from venues in those cities to be relatively painless, while the round trip for those motoring to matches in Los Angeles, California and Toronto and Vancouver, Canada should be prepared for misery.
Those are some of the results of an analysis released Monday by telematics company Geotab Inc. ranking the ability of all 16 cities hosting World Cup matches in June and July to handle the expected of people and vehicles.
“We really wanted to understand and showcase how data can be leveraged and used to help cities better plan for these kinds of events,” said Mike Branch, vice president, data & analytics at Geotab, in an interview. “There is data out there that then can help them understand how to look at the resilience of the city and the transportation networks and helping them make life easier for people to get around during these events.”
That data comes from the more than six million commercial vehicles connected to Geotab’s fleet management Altitude platform around the world, Branch explained.
Each city was given a score with a maximum of 10 points based on four criteria:
- Congestion: how congested roads normally are-35%
- Idling: how much time vehicles waste idling -15%
- Safety: how safely vehicles drive-25%
- Resiliance: how well the cities have bounced back from past large events-25%
The top three scores went to Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas and Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, Mexico.
Stadiums located in more suburban settings, such as Gillette Stadium outside Boston, tended to score better than those in city centers, with the surprising exception being Estadio Azteca in Mexico City.
“The biggest reason for that was the resilience,” said Branch. “It doesn’t have a great congestion score, because it is a congested city, but the ability in and around the stadium and the city to bounce back to those norms, the resilience, is what kind of brought that one up. So that one is surprising and interesting at the same time.”
At the bottom were SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, California, BC Place in Vancouver, British Columbia and BMO Field in Toronto, Ontario, which ranked dead last.
“It’s not right in the core of the city, just a little bit out, but the infrastructure to be able to get there is quite challenging,” said Branch. “There’s a great transit infrastructure. So my recommendation for folks going into BMO field, take the GO train in.”
Indeed, of the four criteria, a city’s resilience score required more complex analysis involving the analysis of how well it bounced back to more normal conditions after major events such as a Taylor Swift concert, Branch explained.
“They might have had a congestion score that was normally pretty good, but it took them forever to get back to that because the resilience of the transportation network wasn’t there,” he said. “The second factor in that is how localized it was to the actual stadium versus that spread. So we did kind of a two bubble thing– so a five kilometer radius at first, and then a 20 kilometer radius to see how quick, how contained was that disruption. “
The company also surveyed 3,000 drivers across Canada, Mexico and the U.S. to gauge how major events affected day-to-day traffic conditions.
The results of the survey confirmed expectations with 76% of respondents in Canada, 89% in Mexico and 79% in the U.S. saying that driving is more stressful during an event.
Geotab is open to working with cities hosting matches to use its data to improve the flow of people and vehicles, Branch said.
As for how spectators can use this data, “There’s many ways you have of getting to an event. I might try to choose to drive, sometimes I might choose to take the train. I think it makes you think twice about how you’re going to get into the event,” Branch advised, “so I think it hopefully allows people to have an informed decision on what route they’re going to to take to get to the to the to the game.”
FIFA World Cup 2026 matches run from June 11 to July 19.
