< back to Services & Technology list

Freeway Service Patrols   

Printer-friendly version

• Introduction
• System Description
• Implementation
• Assessment
• Implementation Examples

Introduction

A freeway service patrol, alternatively known as a motorist assistance patrol, roadway service patrol, or a courtesy patrol, is the umbrella term for a variety of programs implemented by government agencies, typically state Highway Patrols or Departments of Transportation, to reduce traffic congestion and improve highway safety by having specially marked and equipped vehicles patrol designated sections of roadway and provide incident management and motorist assistance at trouble spots they encounter.

In some states, the program name is the generic term, as with California's Freeway Service Patrol; in others, the program has an individualized name, as with Indiana's Hoosier Helper program. Freeway service patrols are typically incorporated into a city or region's intelligent transportation system if it has one, and the United States Department of Transportation has included them as a market package in the National ITS Architecture, designated EM04. That designation emphasizes the role that these patrols can serve in incident or emergency management.

The first freeway service patrol in the United States with continuous regular operations was started in 1960 in Chicago, Illinois. In 1998 the Texas Transportation Institute conducted a study of 54 freeway service patrols in the United States and found that approximately 64% had been started since 1990.

The most visible components of an incident clearance program are freeway service patrols. These operate in most major metropolitan areas of the United States and usually consist of a fleet of light-duty trucks, equipped with two-way radio communication to a traffic control center. Often the local transportation authorities will contract with private tow truck companies, instead of operating a fleet of vehicles themselves.

FSP programs vary in size from two vehicle operations to programs with as many as 150 tow trucks, as is the case in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area. Correspondingly, coverage varies from just a single bridge or tunnel, to several beats within a large metropolitan area.

Functions
The primary function of freeway service patrols is to relieve or prevent traffic congestion by clearing incidents and debris from freeway travel lanes and shoulders. In the course of carrying out this function, freeway service patrols should deploy the equipment and personnel necessary to:

• Assist broken-down motor vehicles by providing fluids, performing emergency mechanical repair, or calling for a towing service;
• Clear debris, such as vegetation or spilled loads, from freeway travel lanes or shoulders;
• Assist local law enforcement agencies with notification and tagging of abandoned vehicles, for the purpose of their prompt removal;
• Use push bumpers to clear disabled vehicles from travel lanes, in the event of non-injury crashes;
• Assist law enforcement with traffic control during incidents and special events;
• Interface with district traffic management centers to verify traffic conditions, deploy traffic management strategies, and respond to incidents.

System Description

Despite freeway service patrols' inclusion in the National ITS Architecture, and their increasingly widespread use, there has been no standardization as to how they are operated. Their scope, in terms of number of vehicles on patrol, operating hours, and milage patrolled, can vary widely.

The patrol may operate only during peak hours, with only 30 or 40 operating hours per week, or may operate all 168 hours during a week, as the West Virginia Courtesy Patrol does. Likewise, the sort of vehicle used in the patrol varies, but may include light-duty pickup trucks, heavy-duty trucks, minivans, or wreckers. In all cases, the vehicle will be marked as a part of the freeway service patrol, and in some states a freeway service patrol vehicle is legally defined as an emergency vehicle. Variation also exists in the role that the agency or agencies responsible for a patrol plays in its operations. For instance, California's Freeway Service Patrol program consists of privately owned and operated wreckers that have contracts with the state, whereas Georgia's HERO program is run directly by the Georgia Department of Transportation: its vehicles are state property and its operators state employees.

Systems, however, usually employ the following components:

Vehicle Type and Equipment
Service patrol programs utilize a wide variety of vehicles including tow trucks, pickup trucks, vans, and utility vehicles. In order to assist motorists with minor vehicle disablements and to provide assistance and traffic control at incident scenes, the patrol vehicles are generally equipped with an assortment of tools and supplies.

Communications: two-way radio, CB radio, police radio, public address
system, cellular phone

Mechanical: push bumper, air compressor, car jacks

Tools: booster cables, tire gage, wrench sets, socket sets, hammers,
screwdrivers, pliers, wire cutters, pry bars, broom, shovel, flashlight

Fluids: gasoline, oil, transmission fluid, starter fluid, water, anti-freeze

Supplies: electrical tape, duct tape, wire, absorbent material, hand
cleaner, paper towels

First Aid/ Safety: first aid kit , fire ext inguisher, gloves, safety goggles,
HazMat guide book

Traffic Control: vehicle-mounted warning lights, cones, flares, portable
traffic control signs

Other: maps, telephone books

Routing–Direction and Time of Day
Generally, routing will follow the warrant(s) for which the service is applicable. In addition to the warrant(s), districts should consider the peak direction of traffic flow if different from morning and evening, and service patrols should route or preposition accordingly to respond to incidents in the warranted corridor.

Aside from directional splits, freeway service patrol implementation should also take into account the peak travel periods of the day. Freeway service patrols should deploy prior to the morning and evening peak travel hours; generally, this equates to a morning coverage between 6:00am - 9:00am, and afternoon coverage between 3:00pm and 6:00pm. In some urban areas, daytime travel does not experience a significant decline after the rush hour, so freeway service patrols should be run throughout the day.

Disciplines and skill sets for Freeway Service Patrol Personnel Freeway service patrol programs should employ drivers who meet or exceed proficiency in the
following subjects:

• Traffic control
• Safety awareness
• Safe driving practices
• Public relations and professional courtesy
• Hazardous material identification
• First aid treatment
• Minor mechanical repair
• Contact with police, fire, and traffic management centers.

(1)

Implementation

The quantifiable benefits from incident clearance efforts are realized at the system, and not at the individual level. Average travel delay savings, per vehicle or per person, are usually small, since most incidents last for only a few minutes, and most people are caught in incident-related congestion only occasionally. Yet it is the "unmeasurable" benefits of freeway service patrols that the public appreciates: a sense of security that stems from knowing that someone will be there to help, plus the confidence that, when an incident occurs, it will be dealt with expeditiously. Public support is most clearly reflected in the fact that voters have supported sales or vehicle registration taxes dedicated to fund incident clearance programs.

Funding
State, federal, and private funds have all been utilized to support freeway service patrol programs. Common sources of state and local tax dollars for funding patrol
programs include fuel taxes, motor vehicle regist rat ion fees, and a percentage of
local or state sales taxes. Some examples of federal funding sources freeway service patrol programs have been able to utilize include congestion mitigat ion and air quality funds, interstate construction funds, National Highway System (NHS) funds, and highway safety funds.

Public/Private Partnership
As public agency funding budgets continue to be strained, public/ private partnerships provide an alternative way of funding mutually
beneficial programs.

The Florida Turnpike recent ly received an $850,000 two-year sponsorship from State Farm Insurance for the State Farm Safety Pat rol, formally known as the Road Rangers program. With this sponsorship, the Turnpike was able to expand service from 7 to 14 patrol vehicles and will be able to ut ilize the saved funds for road improvement projects. State Farm spokesman Chris Neal made the following comment concerning the program “ If we can just prevent even a few accidents, a few claims that we normally would’ve had, it will pay for itself.” (5)

There are a range of public sector, private sector, and public-private partnerships available to implement services. In the past, districts have identified sponsors to underwrite their publicly provided service; in return, the sponsors place advertisements on state service patrol vehicles.

Ohio's District 6, for example, has pursued and maintained a totally private service. In Ohio's district 8, a private sector company is under contract to provide the service, which is again subsidized by private sponsors, thereby reducing public sector expenditures for the service. (1)

Assessment

Determining the Need for Freeway Service Patrols Traffic volume and crash frequency closely correlate. While crashes are recorded relatively well, incidents such as breakdowns and spilled loads are not.

Costs

Using such methods as assigning a dollar value to drivers' time and to the exhaust emissions of vehicles stuck in traffic, studies through the early and mid 1990s estimated the benefit-cost ratio for some freeway service patrols may be as high as 36.2:1. Freeway service patrols are also seen as a way to develop goodwill towards the community in which they operate and the government responsible for them.

Data Recording and Measures of Effectiveness

To effectively manage the service, district personnel should require adequate record-keeping procedures by freeway patrol personnel. At a minimum, drivers should record the following data:

• Date and time of assistance
• Location, using nearest freeway reference marker
• Type of assistance provided
• Duration of service
(1)

Benefits

Freeway service patrols provide a number of benefits for stranded motorists, the
traveling public, transportation agencies, law enforcement agencies, and the
community in general. By accomplishing their main objectives, service patrols are able to:

• Reduce travel delays and lost productivity;
• Reduce the risk of secondary crashes;
• Improve safety for motorists in distress;
• Improve safety for other incident responders;
• Increase efficiency for other incident response agencies;
• Improve interagency communication and cooperation;
• Reduce wasted fuel and environmental pollution;
• Improve transportation system security; and,
• Create goodwill for the community.

The benefits freeway service patrols provide can be measured utilizing both
quant itat ive and qualitat ive methods. The most common quantitative method for measuring the benefits of pat rol programs is a benefit-cost ratio generally based on travel delay savings or fuel consumpt ion savings. A common qualitat ive measure is provided through the dist ribut ion and collect ion of customer satisfaction surveys.

Many patrol programs provide short, postage paid, customer satisfaction surveys to motorists they have assisted. (5)

Opposition

Surveys show that FSP programs, once in place, are very popular amongst motorists. Opposition comes from private tow companies and the recovery industry. There is also some opposition from small-government advocates.

Summary of Evaluation Findings:

Besides benefit/cost ratios, other measures of performance have been used to evaluate incident clearance programs. Most systems are credited with reducing incident response and clearance times, in amounts that vary depending on the extent of assistance both before and after patrol operation began. Estimates of traffic delay reductions depend on prevailing traffic conditions (traffic volume, incident topology, and roadway characteristics) in the corridor or region where services are provided, and so are difficult to generalize across programs. In some cases a reduction in the occurrence of secondary accidents has been observed; this is attributed to reduced incident duration and to better coordination among parties at the incident scene. 

Assessment of Evaluation Methodologies:

While it is unrealistic to collect all the above data system-wide, program evaluations could be designed to take advantage of existing freeway instrumentation, for example by focusing on specific road sections. More importantly, an evaluation should be designed in advance of implementing clearance efforts, thus providing opportunities to collect before and after data. Even then, it should be kept in mind that measurement of traffic delays is often expensive and time-consuming, if at all possible. Analytical methods will be necessary, but they are hardly a substitute for good quality empirical data. In particular, traffic simulation programs should be used carefully when estimating traffic delays, since they may not adequately model the effects of incidents on the traffic stream. 

In estimating benefits, care should be taken not to double-count the value of services rendered. Two issues should be taken into account: the first is that in some instances these services could have been provided by a private tow truck operator, in which case the value of the service is not a net benefit. The second issue is that, although these services are usually provided free of charge, all motorists may indirectly bear the cost of such services. Whether this occurs depends on the specific funding mechanism employed. 

General Guidelines

When organizing incident clearance programs, institutional arrangements that do not require maintaining an in-house vehicle fleet should be examined. In several metropolitan areas private tow trucks already provide some level of motorist assistance. Large scale programs could have serious problems with these private operators, if it is perceived that public agencies are taking over a significant portion of their business. One solution that has already been implemented is to contract with these companies for the provision of incident clearance services. 

Such public/private partnerships add another layer of complexity to an activity that already requires a large degree of cooperation among several public agencies. The need to clearly lay out each agency's responsibilities cannot be over-emphasized. This includes, but is not limited to, establishing a clear chain of command at the scene of an accident, especially when injured people or hazardous materials are involved. In addition, agencies need to deal with the liability issues that may arise when private property is damaged while being removed from the road. The states of California, Texas, and Illinois have passed legislation that ensures the right to remove cargo or vehicles that are blocking a roadway or that are deemed a public hazard, without consent of the owner or liability for damages incurred in the process, as long as the removal is not carried out recklessly or in a grossly negligent manner.

Implementation Examples

The Bay Area FSP is a joint project of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission Service Authority for Freeways and Expressways (MTC SAFE), the California Highway Patrol (CHP) and the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans). The service is provided by private tow truck companies, selected through a competitive bid process, under contract to MTC SAFE.

During the hours of operation, the vehicles and drivers are exclusively dedicated to patrolling their freeway beat. The program is intended to augment the MTC SAFE network of motorist-aid call boxes in the nine Bay Area counties.

Current Profile
A fleet of 83 trucks patrols some 550 miles of the Bay Area's freeways. Patrol routes are selected based on several factors, including a high rate of traffic and congestion, frequent accidents or stalls, and lack of shoulder space for disabled vehicles.

The FSP tow trucks operate primarily during morning and afternoon commute hours, generally from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. or 10 a.m. and from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. or 7 p.m., Monday through Friday. Weekend service is provided in Napa, as well as seasonally along Highway 17, and in some other locations on Sunday.

FSP tow trucks are equipped for nearly any contingency. In addition to the standard auto repair and towing equipment, they carry 5 gallons of diesel fuel, 5 gallons of unleaded gasoline, and 5 gallons of water, as well as an external speaker and public address system.

Funding
The tow trucks are financed with federal, state and local moneys. Local funds come from the MTC SAFE, which is financed by a $1 annual vehicle registration fee in participating counties. The service costs approximately $7 million a year to operate. Another $2 million is invested in sophisticated communications equipment, including an automatic vehicle location system that enables CHP and Caltrans to monitor the location of the trucks and improve dispatching efficiency. (3)

References

Analysis of implementing a Freeway Service Patrol, PDF (1)

Wikipedia (2)

http://fsp-bayarea.org/purpose.htm (3)

State Farm's Safety Patrol Aids Stranded, Disabled Motorists on Fla. Turnpike,
Insurance Journal http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/southeast/2004/12/21/48908.htm (4)

http://www.gvmc.org/transportation/documents/fsp.pdf (5)

Last Updated August 2007