Getty Images The holiday season inspires movement in people – toward family, home, and the places they go to get there. But the high volume of holiday travel and gift purchases can take a toll on the backbone of transportation: infrastructure.
Holiday travel effects have a wide reach, touching airports, roadways, seaports, and other elements of infrastructure across the United States.
For airports, the influx of travelers is not only a logistical challenge but a call for a heightened focus on the customer experience.
“You want to make sure airports are accessible for the different types of travelers that are there. ... There will be a surge in demand for equipment, chairs, and all those things that they have to address more than any other time of the year,” said Amiy Varma, Ph.D., P.E., M.ASCE, president of AAAJ LLC and chair of ASCE’s Aviation Council.
“Infrastructure capacity concerns or crunch also creates safety issues. There are (a) lot more chances of near-misses or collisions … whether it is on the airside apron or airport runways,” he noted.
Many individuals forgo air travel and take to the roads. Today, roadways face the unique challenge of changing traffic patterns driven by post-pandemic work flexibility.
“More people are taking time off these days, working from home, and running errands, so there’s just more volume all the time now on the road networks,” said Jordan Pettibone, P.E., M.ASCE, Illinois Roadway Department manager at Lochmueller Group.
When combined with the holiday travel surge, this can create significant delays for travelers.
At seaports, the amount of cargo that must be processed grows during the holidays.
“Called ‘peak season,’ this surge is driven by high consumer demand as retailers stock up on goods for holiday shopping,” said Mario Cordero, CEO of California’s Port of Long Beach.
Online shopping takes volume to the next level
The growing dominance of online shopping and companies like Amazon has played a key role in shaping airport infrastructure needs in recent years. Now, in addition to surges in travelers, the number of gifts being shipped swells around the holidays, and airports play a major role in the distribution of these items.
“The e-commerce boom is happening, and it is affecting different airports a little bit differently. It’s not just the larger airports; it could be a smaller airport or next-tier airport like (Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport), which became Amazon’s hub,” Varma said.
“They have to adapt to and accommodate some of those things within the same infrastructure of the airport environment. Sometimes there is conflict between the movement of packed cargo and the passenger ground vehicle movement that is taking place in the area,” he said.
According to Varma, Amazon has nearly “single-handedly dictated a lot of infrastructure improvements in certain airports.”
The e-commerce wave has also hit ports. According to Cordero, the pandemic was a major catalyst for this boom, lifting e-commerce by 43% between 2019 and 2020.
This trend, he said, has continued. “Consumers have grown accustomed to rapid delivery for items purchased online, and e-tailers are stocking up to meet that demand. It’s a big part of the holiday shopping season.”
“For example, in November 2023, our cargo volumes rose by 24% year over year, driven by the surge in online sales,” he added.
Once received, packages going through airports and seaports are loaded onto trucks and taken to processing facilities and, eventually, their final destinations. Many gifts are also shipped directly from warehouses, adding another layer to traffic patterns across the U.S.
“Because of the deliveries, especially with Amazon ... there are more vehicles going to the same spots just for temporary purposes, as far as shipping your packages to the neighborhood, so they’re going to increase frequently throughout the day as well,” Pettibone said.
“It’s not going to be the typical 4 (o’clock) to 6 pattern in the afternoon or the 7 to 9 in the morning that our peak hours are typically at – it’s spread throughout the entire day,” he continued.
Online shopping has flooded the roads with small delivery vehicles in addition to the large trucks that have been used for decades. These vehicles play an important role in transporting orders from warehouses to their final destinations, but having more vehicles on the road raises the potential for delays.
Winter weather presents major challenges
Winter weather events have the potential to cause major disruptions for those traveling during the holiday season. Issues like snow on the ground can increase travel times and make roadways more dangerous.
“There is potential for more collisions and crashes based on delayed reaction times for people not adjusting for those conditions,” Pettibone said. “Sometimes, you have longer braking distances that you need to account for in slippery weather.”
Airport runways, particularly those in northern climates, are similarly affected. “Runway incursions, excursions all take on a higher role in terms of a concern that might be there,” Varma said.
Flight cancellations can add hours to trips, keeping travelers in airports for longer periods of time. With a large volume of people enduring this during the holidays, it puts more pressure on airport infrastructure and hurts the customer experience.
Emerging technologies shaping future of holiday travel
Infrastructure organizations are embracing modern technology to help minimize adverse effects of high-volume travel.
Alerts from GPS applications, such as Google Maps and Apple Maps, can report delays and other disruptions to their users. Municipalities are leveraging social media to warn travelers about problems on the road, such as severe crashes.
“Those big LED boards will have information about travel delays and potential crashes and conflict points so people can actively take different routes if available for them,” Pettibone said.
Airports, said Varma, are increasingly connecting with airlines and other airports to communicate bottlenecks and delays to travelers.
“There is a lot more technology with AI and predictive analytics. Some things that can be identified in doing that are the capacity limitation from various terminals, the gate area, and the roadway,” he said.
The Port of Long Beach has also leaned into emerging technology. Cordero said the port “is developing a digital data sharing environment to help shippers track their cargo through the supply chain to maximize efficiency and visibility in cargo movement.”
“Known as the Supply Chain Information Highway, the system will enable stakeholders to make scheduling, planning, and payment decisions prior to cargo arrival as well as speed deliveries through the supply chain while protecting data security.”
The holiday surge can be overwhelming for travelers and the infrastructure they use, but strategic planning and advanced technologies offer new ways for engineers to address modern transportation challenges.
