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Background

The Port of Galveston stands as the fastest-growing cruise port in North America and ranked as North America's 4th busiest cruise port in 2024.

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Located on Galveston Island, Texas, approximately 50 miles southeast of Houston, this historic port serves as a critical gateway for both cruise passengers and commercial cargo operations. The port welcomed nearly 1.5 million passengers embarking on more than 350 cruises in 2024, making it a convenient departure point for travelers within a 300-mile radius.

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Propelled by the addition of a third cruise terminal, higher occupancies on larger ships, and an increase in sailings, the substantial growth has made Galveston an epicenter of the cruise industry.

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Beyond cruise operations, Galveston handles significant cargo volumes, moving more than 500,000 tons of cargo annually and providing provisions for hundreds of cruise ships. The port's diverse cargo operations include roll-on/roll-off vehicles, wind turbine components, construction equipment, and agricultural machinery.

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Growth Brings Challenges

The Port of Galveston's unprecedented growth has created significant traffic management challenges that threaten to undermine the very success driving the port's expansion. During peak cruise days, thousands of vehicles converge on the port facilities simultaneously as passengers arrive for embarkation, creating strain on the limited road network leading to the terminals. 

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The situation is further complicated by the mixing of different types of traffic. As a cruise ship prepares to sail, dozens of provisioning trucks deliver food, beverages and other supplies to restock the ship. Adding these large tractor-trailer trucks into the mix with cruise passenger traffic can slow down traffic flow. Commercial cargo operations add another layer of complexity, with hundreds of trucks entering the port annually for cargo operations.

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External factors have amplified these challenges. Major highway construction projects on Interstate 45, the primary route connecting Houston to Galveston Island, have periodically created crippling traffic congestion along I-45, the Gulf Freeway that links Houston to Galveston Island and the port facilities. These disruptions have resulted in travelers facing driving times of up to several hours to reach the cruise terminal via cabs, shuttles, and ride shares.

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The benefits of more clarity about the port’s impact are clear. For cruise passengers, improved traffic flow can eliminate the stress and uncertainty of arrival times, ensuring a positive start to their vacation experience. For port operations, better traffic management would enable more predictable and efficient terminal operations.

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Reducing congestion would allow cruise lines to maintain precise embarkation schedules, while enabling more efficient provisioning and cargo operations. And for residents and other visitors to Galveston, minimizing the disruption to daily life when multiple cruises are running can ensure good relationships between the city and the port.

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Technical Approach

The Port of Galveston has been a participant in the Waze for Cities program for several years, getting access to real-time information about congestion levels and alerts. But due to limited staff and technical resources, the Port had not maximized the capability of the data, particularly for building analyses over time. The Port partnered with Vianova to begin ingesting the Waze for Cities data in the Vianova Intelligence Platform, transforming the raw data provided every two minutes by Waze into actionable, analyzable data streams to understand traffic flows within and around the port.

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Vianova worked with the Port of Galveston to identify a number of key corridors to monitor, particularly during peak cruise hours. This helps the Port create a clear baseline for traffic levels in Galveston, and what the impact is of various scenarios at the port facilities on roads near to the port and in neighborhoods throughout the island.

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The Vianova Intelligence Platform enhances the foundational Waze data through an easy-to-use query interface, based on artificial intelligence. Instead of working with complex query language, port staff are able to ask questions in natural language. This system enables port operators to visualize historical mobility insights on any given geography and time range while also providing real-time monitoring of conditions.

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Results

The integration of Vianova’s Intelligence Platform helped support a key use case of the Port of Galveston- providing key insights about the relative influence of cruise traffic and building a baseline for easy comparison. 

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Data indicates that the port is already responsibly managing traffic along key corridors, with negligible difference in traffic between 0 cruise days and those with multiple ships full of arriving and departing passengers. This baseline understanding can help the port and their partners in the city plan for more responsible growth into the future.

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The platform also identified several "quick wins" for traffic improvement, including optimized traffic light timing at key intersections and more active management at the airport-like curb directly in front of the cruise ship entrances.

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Outcomes and Next Steps

The success of the traffic intelligence implementation has positioned the Port of Galveston to better manage its continued growth trajectory. The port has integrated traffic monitoring into its operations procedures. The goal is now to integrate more dynamic information in real-time to better control traffic flows into and out of parking facilities, ensuring better info for travelers.

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Looking ahead, the port plans to leverage the platform's analytical capabilities to forecast traffic impacts as new terminals come online and cruise capacity continues to expand. Port officials anticipate continued growth, and the Vianova Intelligence Platform provides the foundation for managing this growth sustainably.

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The success at Galveston demonstrates how ports can harness real-time traffic data and advanced analytics to transform operational challenges into competitive advantages, ensuring that growth enhances rather than compromises the customer experience.

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About Vianova

Vianova is the data analytics solution to operate the mobility world. Our platform harnesses the power of connected vehicles and IoT data, to provide actionable insights to plan for safer, greener, and more efficient transportation infrastructures.

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From enabling regulation of shared mobility to transforming last-mile deliveries, and mapping road risk hotspots, Vianova serves 150+ cities, fleet operators, and enterprises across the globe to change the way people and goods move.

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