What World Cup crowds could mean for parking and deliveries in the Kansas City region

Game Plan is a Q&A series highlighting how KU School of Business research connects to the challenges and opportunities of hosting a global event. As the Kansas City and Lawrence areas welcome World Cup visitors, these conversations explore topics that affect travel, business operations, consumer behavior, and daily life across the region.

In this edition, Sara Reed, assistant professor of business analytics at KU, discusses how parking and curb access shape last-mile and same-day delivery during periods of intense demand.

As the Kansas City metro and Lawrence area prepare to host World Cup visitors, why does parking play such a critical role in keeping everyday deliveries and services running smoothly? 

Curbside access to park is essential to complete on-foot deliveries efficiently. Even in everyday conditions, finding parking in customer-dense areas like downtown Kansas City is already challenging. As we welcome World Cup visitors to the area, demand for curbside will increase significantly.  

The hope is that we welcome visitors from around the world to the Kansas City metro area, which means that they may not be familiar with how to get from one place to another or where to get what they need. Visitors often rely on services like Uber, DoorDash, and other delivery platforms to navigate unfamiliar areas, while other drivers may drive themselves and need to find parking. This increased competition for curb space can make it more difficult for delivery drivers to operate efficiently.  

Managing the curbside effectively during the World Cup will help with essential day-to-day services, but also ensure a more positive experience for visitors and our community. 

Your research shows that even a minute or two spent searching for parking can change delivery outcomes. Why does such a small amount of time make such a big difference? 

The impact of one-minute search times for parking depends on customer density in the delivery area. Consider multiple deliveries on a block in downtown Kansas City versus multiple house deliveries farther apart in more rural parts of Kansas. There are benefits to consolidating deliveries by parking once in downtown Kansas City and walking to deliver packages to multiple locations on the same block. In rural environments, it is often efficient for the driver to move the vehicle between each delivery as larger walking distances between deliveries do not lead to the same benefits. 

Environments that have denser customer populations, like urban environments, tend to also face the challenge of parking. So, in these environments, parking search times do not need to be high — even just one minute — to impact optimal routing choices for the delivery. The driver is more efficient by minimizing the number of parks and serving customers in clusters. In practice, studies in cities like Seattle show that delivery drivers spend on average 5 minutes searching for parking. Therefore, even greater gains can be achieved by drivers making strategic parking decisions. 

Major events like the World Cup bring denser crowds and changes in parking conditions and potentially enforcement. How do those conditions affect delivery drivers and driver decision-making behind the scenes?  

Even if companies utilize routing algorithms and software to optimize the service order in the delivery route, the operational decisions of where to park the vehicle and how to complete on-foot service are left to the delivery driver. These decisions are critical to ensure efficient deliveries.  

An experienced driver may utilize their knowledge of the delivery area — where parking is typically more available or typical enforcement levels in the area — to make decisions on where to park for efficient deliveries. However, the denser crowds and higher needs for the curbside during major events like the World Cup may change these conditions.  

The conditions of familiar areas for an experienced driver may become less predictable, but the driver can still leverage local knowledge in navigating the area to make efficient decisions. If delivery demand increases to a level that necessitates additional drivers, one approach is to pair an experienced driver with an additional delivery worker on the vehicle. Once parked, increased productivity can be achieved by both the driver and delivery worker completing on-foot deliveries. This strategy is used during high-demand holiday shopping seasons, but could also be a temporary solution during major events that lead to high delivery demand. 

What happens to delivery routes and timing when parking becomes harder to find around busy areas like downtown Kansas City, Kansas City Stadium, and other entertainment districts around Kansas City? 

Increased traffic and parking congestion can lead to less efficient delivery routes and unpredictable timing of deliveries. Drivers and routing systems can anticipate some disruptions. For example, drivers can expect parking to be a challenge near the stadiums, the FIFA Fan Festival, and other tourist attractions. Routing systems can expect higher traffic congestion in particular areas based on game schedules or other events. However, the exact impact on the route can vary from day to day and even hour to hour.  

Drivers may spend more time searching for parking than expected or need to adjust routes in hopes of avoiding congested areas. Even adding an extra minute to make adjustments at individual stops can accumulate across the entire route. These disruptions are expected, but they make it harder to maintain consistent delivery performance.

Many people assume delivery drivers can double park. Based on your research, why isn’t that always a realistic or efficient solution, especially during large events, and how does enforcement (or a lack of enforcement) factor into double parking? 

From the driver’s perspective, double parking involves a trade-off between saving time and taking on the risk of paying a fine. If there is no parking enforcement, it is efficient to drive between deliveries and double park at the delivery locations. It is a simple approach for the driver, but leads to negative outcomes, such as blocking travel lines and increasing traffic congestion.  

Consistent parking enforcement can influence driver behavior, particularly if the delivery company is not willing to pay the fine. Drivers can avoid fines for double parking by being more strategic in their search process. For example, the driver should not just drive directly to the delivery location and then search for parking. If the driver finds an available parking spot prior to arriving at the delivery location, it becomes cost-effective to stop earlier and walk farther to complete the delivery.  

During large events, we already expect increased traffic and demand for the curbside. Therefore, the impacts of double parking by delivery drivers are amplified. Managing curbside effectively to keep drivers from double parking becomes critical to keep both traffic and deliveries running smoothly. 

Your work looks at differences between urban and more spread‑out areas. How might parking challenges and delivery impacts differ between places like downtown Kansas City and the Kansas City suburbs or Lawrence during the World Cup? 

Parking challenges and delivery impacts will differ across the region. In everyday conditions, urban environments like downtown Kansas City experience increased parking challenges and higher delivery demands relative to Kansas City suburbs or Lawrence. The World Cup is expected to magnify these challenges, particularly near stadiums and the FIFA Fan Festival.

Typically, suburban areas have less concentrated demand and more available parking. However, deliveries to these areas often originate at or flow through urban consolidation points. Therefore, increased traffic congestion in central Kansas City could lead to slower travel times and affect delivery reliability in the region.  

Lawrence, in particular, looks forward to hosting the team base camp for Algeria, which likely includes welcoming Algerian fans and other visitors. In addition, the ConnectKC26 transit service hopes to connect regional locations, like Lawrence, with the World Cup activities in Kansas City. Expanding transportation access hopefully spreads the economic impact to these areas but could also lead to increased parking challenges and congestion at these regional points of access as well. Although central Kansas City will see the greatest and most immediate impacts, the effects on the transportation system are likely to influence delivery operations in the entire region. 

Why are dense, event‑heavy environments especially challenging for last‑mile delivery compared to everyday conditions? What challenges do these types of environments present for same-day deliveries? 

In everyday conditions, last-mile delivery is one of the most expensive parts of the supply chain, requiring significant labor and fuel to complete multiple stops in often variable traffic conditions. During large events, traffic conditions become less predictable, with more congestion, more competition for limited curb space, and shifting travel patterns based on event activities. At the same time, residents and visitors may rely on delivery services to avoid congested areas or to navigate unfamiliar surroundings. 

These conditions are especially challenging for same-day delivery where a key metric is to meet delivery time windows. Visitors unfamiliar with the area and only staying for a limited time often depend on the on-demand service that same-day delivery can provide. The ability to provide reliable, timely deliveries becomes an important part of the overall visitor experience. However, higher delivery volumes combined with unpredictable traffic conditions make it even more difficult to meet the demands of same-day delivery while providing reliable time windows. 

As online ordering continues to grow, what does your research suggest about how businesses and customers should be setting expectations about receiving deliveries? How can businesses incentivize customers to minimize strain on delivery services? 

Consumers have increasingly higher expectations of delivery companies. They want their deliveries fast, affordable, and on time. As online ordering continues to grow and businesses experience higher delivery demands, meeting all of these expectations becomes more challenging.  

From the business perspective, transparency in delivery timing is critical to set consumer expectations. This includes providing reliable, dynamic delivery time windows that capture real-time operational challenges. During more uncertain times, longer delivery time windows may be necessary to appropriately set consumer expectations and improve delivery reliability. We see these kinds of adaptions by delivery companies during busy seasons, like holiday shopping, when businesses adjust timeliness or operational approaches to maintain service quality. 

In terms of incentives, businesses should encourage customer behavior that provides more operational flexibility. For example, offering discounts or benefits to bundle deliveries or select flexible delivery days can help optimize routing. Faster deliveries or narrower delivery time windows can be offered at a premium to inform customers of the true cost of such services. 

How might Kansas City (or even Lawrence) residents notice the effects of parking constraints during the World Cup, even if they’re not attending matches or fan events themselves? 

Even residents who are not attending World Cup events are likely to notice the effects of parking constraints through changes to everyday travel and parking routines. In preparation, the region has made infrastructure adjustments and policy changes to alter how parking is managed.  

In Kansas City, residents near the stadium will need a permit for vehicle access to their neighborhood on game days. The recently-opened Jazz District Garage and the West Bottoms Garage will be utilized as park-and-ride locations with a shuttle to the FIFA Fan Festival. These changes may affect where residents can park, how they commute, and how easily visitors can access nearby areas. 

In Lawrence, similar adjustments are being made even though we are further away from World Cup activities. The University of Kansas will require permits for all campus lots, even those that were open parking in previous summers. Some lots will also be available to the public to park for a fee with shuttle connections to the ConnectKC26 transit service.  

These changes highlight how managing parking is central to planning for an event of this scale. For residents, this may translate into more restricted parking, altered traffic patterns, and the need to plan trips more carefully. 

If there’s one thing people should understand about parking and last‑mile or same-day delivery as this region gears up for the World Cup, what is it? 

Parking and curb access are essential to keeping deliveries and services running, especially during a large event like the World Cup. As we welcome visitors, expect increased traffic congestion and competition for parking, which may impact daily life but will certainly make it more difficult for delivery drivers to operate efficiently.

To help improve delivery reliability, consumers can play a role by planning ahead and being flexible in their delivery deadlines. Small consumer changes can make a big difference in keeping deliveries on track during a high-demand event like the World Cup.