Employing big data analytics to monitor transportation impacts in El Paso during Pope's visit to the US-Mexico border City of Juárez

City and state agencies often need guidance to manage traffic demand during special events. The demand and supply uncertainty during a major event makes it challenging to identify an optimal demand management strategy. Hence, agencies take a conventional approach, developing inflexible plans that inherently assume a high demand and congested conditions. Often, perceived supply constraints on the day of “rare” special events leads to reduced demand, resulting in uncongested conditions. This was the case when Pope Francis visited various cities across the US, and later the border city of Juárez near El Paso on the US-Mexico border. This study analyzed the impact of the Papal Visit on El Paso's transportation system. The results found mostly uncongested traffic conditions and increased travel time reliability when compared with regular weekdays and weekends. People preferred walking and transit over using private vehicles to cross the border to attend either the mass in Juárez or the event in El Paso. The developed methodology and results will be useful for city, state and federal agencies in El Paso to manage travel demand during similar special events.