Article for Roads and Bridges

3D"Text Advancing an National Agenda for Traff= ic Incident Management

By John Horsley, Exec= utive Director, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials

Its morning rush hour. Traffic moves along at a slow = but steady speed as you pull onto the expressway toward the office. Suddenly, = red lights ahead! There’s been an accident. Drivers slam on their brakes= , but unfortunately someone wasn’t fast enough. With a loud screech and a = bang another accident has occurred. Suddenly its looking unlikely that you̵= 7;re going to make your 9:00 am meeting.

The effects ripple down the busy corridor at lightning speeds. Frustration mounts as traffic grinds to a halt for several miles upstream of the incident scenes. Gawking onlookers add to the chaos, resul= ting in similar backups in the opposite direction.

Emergency responders arrive at the scene to find a na= sty multi-car pile up with gasoline and debris strewn across the road. More critically, at least one victim appears to have suffered fatal injuries, another is still trapped in the rubble. Additional responder units and spe= cial life saving equipment is called for; a coroner is notified. Responders clo= se an additional lane of traffic to allow crews to work and make space for landi= ng an emergency medical helicopter. The department of transportation and the environmental protection agency are called to help with the cleanup. But f= irst an accident investigation must be done. All this could take several hours. Meanwhile traffic queues continue to grow, motorists are stuck, and shipme= nts are delayed.

Scenes like this happen across the country many times= every day – leading to death, injury, and million of unproductive hours. O= ver 42,000 fatalities occurred due to incidents on our nation’s roadways= last year, and the Texas Transportation Institute estimates that traffic incide= nts account for about half of all motorist delay in urban areas. And as in the example given above, incidents greatly increase the risk for additional crashes; in fact, one study found that the likelihood of a secondary crash increases by 2.8 percent for each minute the primary accident continues to= be a hazard.[1]

State DOTs T= aking Action

State departments of transportation (DOTs) are making= a concerted effort to change these startling statistics. Increasingly, state= DOTs are taking an active role in operating their roadways in real-time to keep traffic moving safely and at optimum speeds. This means preventing inciden= ts, and when they do happen, minimizing negative consequences through coordina= ted incident management.

A growing number of state DOTs operate or support fre= eway service patrols. These well equipped fleets provide a gallon of gas, chang= e a tire, or a give a short tow to get stalled vehicles off busy roadways befo= re they become a major crash statistic. States that have these programs claim= they are among the most popular of all state services in addition to helping ke= ep their roadways incident free.

Managing traffic incidents is not something states ca= n do alone. Clearly, law enforcement, fire, emergency medical services, towing operators and others are key partners in this mission. But many state DOTs= are playing a key role in coordinating how these partners work together and in responding to incidents when they happen. At least 25 states now operate traffic management centers (TMC) where personnel monitor roadways, sometim= es 24 hours a day, to identify incidents and get the proper responders to the sc= ene. TMCs and the intelligent transportation systems technologies they support, allow operators to actively manage the transportation system when an incid= ent does occur, adjusting signals, ramp meters and other devices and putting o= ut warnings to travelers through radio, television, web, and freeway dynamic message signs. Increasingly, TMCs are being integrated with police, fire, = and emergency medical dispatch to support communication and coordination among partners. New TMC facilities in Austin, <= st1:State w:st=3D"on">Texas and Salt Lake City, Utah incorporate computer aided dispatch systems with traffic management capabilities to enable seamless operations, and some TMCs double as primar= y or backup emergency operations centers for coordinating response to major disasters.

Coordination doesn’t happen through technology = alone. Advance planning is also key. State DOTs are taking active roles in forging partnerships, establishing agreements, and pushing for policies to help responders clear incidents faster and more safely. An example is the Wisco= nsin Traffic Incident Management Enhancement (TIME) program – a partnersh= ip of 20 government agencies and 13 private organizations dedicated to improving incident management practices on Wisconsin’s roadways.

State DOTs are also taking active roles in establishi= ng policies and programs to improve incident management. These range from qui= ck clearance laws that encourage drivers to move their vehicles off the freew= ay in the case of minor incidents to well coordinated programs and supporting la= ws to allow responders to clear incident scenes as quickly as possible. At least= 14 states have laws on the books requiring motorists to remove their vehicles= from travel lanes – even before officials arrive on the scene, if possible – if their vehicles are drivable and no one was seriously injured or killed. Other states have established “authority removal” laws and/or “authority tow” laws that allow designated responders or towing companies to move vehicles before an investigation – even if = the driver is absent or objects. And although most states require a medical examiner or coroner to examine a possible fatality before the body can be removed, Connecticut, Maryland, Virginia and some parts of Texas and Florida now have laws allowing victims to be moved off scene for examination.

These efforts can add up to big results. Maryland Sta= te Highway Administration calculates that its incident management program sla= shed the time needed to clear traffic incidents by 43 percent in 2001, from an average of 50.7 minutes to just 28.8 minutes per incident – saving <= st1:place w:st=3D"on">Maryland travel= ers an estimated 26 million hours of delay, 4.35 million gallons of fuel, and 4.0= 27 tons of vehicular emissions. All that equates to an estimated $403 million= in savings to Maryland travelers!

AASHTO Joins= Forces with Public Safety

Just as many state DOTs are leading efforts to improve incident management practices on their roadways, AASHTO is working to focus national attention on the issue. In 2002, AASHTO hosted the National Confe= rence on Traffic Incident Management. More than 150 practitioners and policy exp= erts from the fire and emergency response, law enforcement, towing, transportat= ion and technology communities discussed barriers and opportunities for improv= ing traffic incident management. Conferees identified eight national-level act= ion areas to advance the state of the practice in traffic incident management:=

High-level multi-agency coordination
Public education
Improved operational performance
Technology deployment
A national framework
Integrated multi-agency operations
Training
Research

The need to designate a national organization to spea= rhead, conduct, and track activities in traffic incident management was a consist= ent theme among these action areas. Hence, AASHTO led the effort to launch the Natio= nal Traffic Incident Management Coalition (NTIMC).

With 20 charter member organizations, the NTIMC held = its first meeting in June 2004. The Coalition is a multi-disciplinary partners= hip with a goal of substantially improving incident management practices natio= nwide through enhanced knowledge exchange and coordination. The Coalition’s activities focus on improving three core areas:

Rescue of victims and stranded motorists
Protection of responders and moto= rists
Savings and delay reduction for freight and passenger traffic

Already, the Coalition has had a substantial impact. = In its first nine months, the Coalition has:

Established a website,
Published and widely distributed two brochures entitled “National Traffic Incident Management Coalition: Improving Traffic Incident Management Together” and “Nine Keys to Success for Traffic Incident Management Programs,”
Co-hosted a national web cast,
Compiled a catalog of related activities by national associations and other organizations as targets for outreach and partnership opportunities, = and
Compiled a compendium of incident management research and initiatives dating b= ack to 1990 – which includes both a snapshot of the effort and a description of the project’s purpose and key findings.

All of these resources are, or will soon be, availabl= e on the NTIMC website: http://TIMCoalition.org.

The Coalition has also established a precedence of pr= oviding input to developing resources and standards of importance to the traffic incident responder community. To begin with, Coalition members reviewed and provided feedback on a forthcoming National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) product, a Guide to Emergency Traffic Operations. The Coalition’s involvement provid= ed broader public safety perspective on the guide’s content, and put the Coalition in a position to possibly adopt or recommend the document as a resource to constituents in the future. The Coalition is also in the proce= ss of providing comments to the American National Standards Institute about a recently adopted standard for high visibility apparel (ANSI/ISEA 107-2004)= .

Next, the NTIMC, in partnership with the I-95 Corridor Coalition, plans to assist the transportation community on compliance with= the National Incident Management System. (NIMS). NIMS is an initiative of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to integrate emergency preparedness and response practices into a comprehensive national framework for incident management. In this effort, the NTIMC will leverage the substantial knowle= dge of the Coalition’s public safety representatives to develop compatib= le guidance for transportation responders.

One of the most obvious strengths of the NTIMC is its ability to widely distribute information, by leveraging each constituent organization’s communications mechanisms. The Coalition plans to capitalize on this ability, focusing its attention over the coming six mon= ths on developing a strategic communications plan. The NTIMC will also be work= ing with the Federal Highway Administration and the I-95 Corridor Coalition in= establishing new web-based tools including a “Clearinghouse” and a “Community of Practice” – the first serving primarily as= a library for finding information and the second as an actively managed reso= urce for sharing knowledge among practitioners. The partners also plan to work together to coordinate new research and disseminate results.

So we should all look forward to hearing a lot more a= bout incident management in the future!

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