FIFA World Cup 2026 signage at MetLife Stadium, which will host eight FIFA World Cup 2026 matches, in East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA, Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg.
© 2026 Bloomberg Finance LP
Football fans are in attendance FIFA World Cup 2026 Races in Boston, Massachusetts, Houston, Texas and Mexico City are likely to find travel to and from those cities’ venues relatively painless, while the round trip for those driving to races in Los Angeles, California and Toronto and Vancouver, Canada should be prepared for misery.
These are some of the results of an analysis released on Monday by the telematics company Geotab Inc. ranking the capacity of all 16 World Cup host cities in June and July to handle the expected number of people and vehicles.
The ranking of the 16 host cities of the 2026 FIFA World Cup on their ability to handle human and vehicle crashes before and after the matches, based on a study by telematics company Geotab Inc.
Geotab Inc.
“We really wanted to understand and show how data can be leveraged and used to help cities better plan for these types of events,” Mike Branch, vice president of data and analytics at Geotab, said in an interview. “There’s data out there that can help them understand how to look at city resilience and transportation networks and help them make life easier for people to get around during these events.”
This data comes from over six million commercial vehicles connected to Geotab’s fleet management Altitude platform around the world, Branch explained.
Each city was given a score out of a maximum of 10 points based on four criteria:
- Congestion: how busy the roads usually are-35%
- Idling: how much time vehicles waste idling -15%
- Safety: how safe vehicles drive – 25%
- Resilience: how well cities have recovered from previous major events – 25%
The first 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 areas, such as Gillette Stadium outside Boston, tended to score better than those in city centers, with the surprising exception of Estadio Azteca in Mexico City.
Aerial view of Azteca Stadium in Mexico City (Photo by CARL DE SOUZA / AFP) (Photo by CARL DE SOUZA/AFP via Getty Images)
AFP via Getty Images
“The biggest reason for that was durability,” Branch said. “It doesn’t have a great congestion score, because it’s a congested city, but the ability in and around the stadium and the city to bounce back to those standards, the resilience, is what has brought it up. So it’s 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 last.
Toronto’s BMO Field was ranked last among 16 FIFA World Cup 2026 venues in a Geotab study of how each host city is likely to handle the increased traffic and influx of people during the tournament. (Photo by Anatoliy Cherkasov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
LightRocket via Getty Images
“It’s not exactly in the core of the city, a little bit outside, but the infrastructure to get there is quite challenging,” Branch said. “There is a great transit infrastructure. So my recommendation for those going to the BMO area, take it GO train in.”
Indeed, of the four criteria, a city’s resilience score required more complex analysis that included analyzing how well it bounced back to more normal conditions after major events like a Taylor Swift concert, Branch explained.
Mike Branch, vice president of data and analytics at Geotab Inc.
Toronto Wedding Studios
“They might have had a congestion rating that was normally pretty good, but it took them forever to get back to that because the resilience of the transport network wasn’t there,” he said. “The second factor in this is how localized it is in the actual stage versus that spread. So we did something with two bubbles—so a five-kilometer radius at first and then a 20-kilometer radius to see how fast, how limited that disturbance was.”
The company also surveyed 3,000 drivers across Canada, Mexico and the US to measure how major events affected daily traffic conditions.
The survey results confirmed expectations with 76% of respondents in Canada, 89% in Mexico and 79% in the US saying that driving is more stressful during an event.
Geotab is open to working with host cities to use its data to improve the flow of people and vehicles, Branch said.
As for how viewers can use this data, “There’s a lot of ways to get to an event. I might try and choose to drive, sometimes take the train. I think it makes you think twice about how you’re going to get to the event,” advises Branch, “so hopefully it allows people to make an informed decision about which route they’re going to take to the game to get the game.”
The FIFA World Cup 2026 matches will run from June 11 to July 19.
