Traffic chaos at the British Open Golf Championship

The Open Championship golf tournament returned to the Northern Irish seaside town of Portrush last weekend. The 153^rd Open at Royal Portrush saw 156 players competing for the coveted Claret Jug, with local favorites Rory McIlroy and Darren Clarke drawing huge crowds to the prestigious sporting event.

In fact, almost 280,000 spectators turned up at the north coast, making this the largest sporting event ever held in Northern Ireland.

As one of Northern Ireland’s most popular holiday destinations, and with schools out for summer, Portrush and the surrounding area is already very busy at this time of year. Adding to the chaos, a local band parade took place in Portrush on the evening of Saturday 19 July at the same time as golf fans were making their way home from the event.

To mitigate the additional crowds, authorities put in place road closures, one-way systems and no stopping orders on key roads for the entire week.

Roads affected included those passing by Royal Portrush where the Open took place, as well as streets near the venue. These restrictions had the effect of funneling traffic away from the golf course.

Real-time traffic analysis

Throughout the Open, HERE has been tracking real-time traffic disruption around Portrush. Its congestion score – also called jam factor – ranks traffic disruption on a score from 0-10.

Green represents free-flowing traffic with a jam factor of less than 4, while yellow shows sluggish traffic flow with a score between 4 and 8. Orange shows increasingly sluggish flow with a Jam Factor between 6 and 8. The red line represents a slow flow of traffic with a score between 8 and 10, while black is reserved for a road closure.

Taking a snapshot of the traffic on the busiest days of the tournament, we can see traffic starting to build in the center of Portrush town at 1pm on Saturday with some roads at a complete standstill. This area is where many of the town’s hotels and holiday rentals are.

The roads adjacent to the golf course were also at a complete standstill at this time, as the golfers leading the pack tee off later in the afternoon and were starting to arrive at the venue. By 2pm, traffic congestion built to almost a complete standstill on the one-way system through Portrush and remained so for the rest of the afternoon.

On Sunday, the final day of the championship, the roads in Portrush weren’t as badly affected by traffic to begin with. Analyzing the same time period, there were fewer blocked roads between 1pm and 4pm.

The only significant disruption at 1pm was on the road leading towards the car park beside the golf course, which was severely congested. However, as the afternoon moved on, the one-way system in Portrush started to back up with traffic, with one of the main roads exiting the town at a standstill. By late afternoon, there were a few flashes of red indicating a complete standstill on some roads heading away from Portrush.

With HERE Real-Time Traffic, motorists can minimize delays with instant traffic. As one of the largest databases of aggregated traffic data, HERE Real-Time Traffic shows flow rates as well as incidents such as road closures, collisions and roadworks. Drivers can then re-route away from congested hotspots to keep moving and avoid unnecessary delays.