From FIFA to LA28: Evaluating What Will Actually Work

The United States has extensive experience hosting major sporting events, but FIFA introduced a different level of operational complexity. While venues such as SoFi Stadium and NRG Stadium regularly accommodate crowds exceeding 70,000 spectators, the World Cup required cities to welcome tens of thousands of international visitors unfamiliar with local transportation systems, parking operations, payment methods, and wayfinding.

The challenge extended far beyond the stadium gates. Airports, transit systems, rideshare providers, shuttle operations, pedestrian networks, hotels, and parking facilities all had to function as one coordinated transportation system. Success depended not only on infrastructure, but also on communication, multilingual information, and collaboration among public agencies, venue operators, transportation providers, and private parking organizations.

For LA28, FIFA represents much more than another international sporting event. It provides an opportunity to evaluate which transportation strategies proved effective and, just as importantly, which can realistically be expanded across more than 45 competition and non-competition venues during several weeks of Olympic and Paralympic competition.

One of the biggest lessons is that parking cannot be planned in isolation. International visitors arrive with different expectations regarding reservations, payment methods, pricing, and customer service. Hotels become transportation hubs, helping guests navigate unfamiliar systems. Spectator travel depends on well-coordinated parking, transit, rideshare, shuttle services, and safe pedestrian connections. At the same time, athlete transportation requires dedicated bus parking, secure staging areas, and carefully managed credentialed access to ensure events remain on schedule.

The question now is not simply what worked during FIFA, but what is operationally feasible for LA28. Did multilingual communication reduce confusion? Were reservation platforms and mobile payment systems easy for international visitors to use? How effectively did rideshare operations, shuttle services, and last-mile transportation integrate with parking operations? Which initiatives improved the customer experience, and which created new operational challenges?

These questions will be the focus of an upcoming Los Angeles Parking Association (LAPA) meeting, where parking owners, operators, public agencies, and LA28 representatives will review the operational impact FIFA had on Downtown Los Angeles and the greater Los Angeles region. Participants have been asked to share operational data, including customer arrival patterns, parking rates, staffing levels, shuttle performance, last-mile mobility, marketing effectiveness, and customer feedback from sources such as Google and Yelp. This information will help identify what should be carried forward and what should be refined before 2028.

Perhaps the greatest value of FIFA is that it provides real-world operational evidence rather than theoretical planning assumptions. Models and forecasts are valuable but observing how transportation systems perform under international demand offers insights that cannot be replicated in a planning exercise. Understanding customer behavior, staffing requirements, hospitality challenges, bus operations, and traffic management will help planners make more informed decisions before the Olympic and Paralympic Games arrive.

The goal for LA28 is not to duplicate FIFA's transportation plan. It is to build a parking and transportation system that is practical, scalable, resilient, and welcoming for millions of visitors. By learning from FIFA's successes and challenges, the parking industry has a unique opportunity to help create an Olympic experience that is efficient, accessible, and remembered for all the right reasons.