What Is It? 

• Incidents include anything that disrupts the normal flow of traffic such as stalled cars, accidents and objects that have fallen on the roadway. Response may require the dispatch of tow trucks, police or highway patrol personnel, medical help, road maitenance crews, HazMat teams, or other emergency services to address the incident and clear the road and restore it to full capacity. Response may also include disseminating information regarding the incident via radio, changeable message signs and other media.

• Incident clearance is a multidisciplinary process involving police, service patrols, tow trucks, HazMat teams and other emergency response teams depending on the nature of the incident. It is often managed from a Transportation Management Center (TMC), which may also house highway patrol personnel and other emergency response units. Some TMC's develop advance plans to address various types of incidents in order to respond quickly and efficiently when an incident occurs. Some agencies also maintain a freeway service patrol that can quickly reach the scene of an incident and tow a vehicle that is blocking the road. Freeway Service Patrols can also confirm that an incident has occurred and advise the TMC of its nature and the response needed. Some TMCs maintain mobile medical units as well.

Key Results

Rapid and appropriate response to injury accidents can save lives and minize damage from the injury. A swift response also reduces the chance of further accidents and bottlenecks caused by impatient drivers and gawkers, resulting in improved travel times along freeways.

Benefits

• Shorter incident response times and clearance times (shorter incident duration) 

• Reduction in delay due to lane and roadway closure. 

• Fewer secondary accidents caused by the incident.

Costs

• Costs for Transportation Management Centers depend on the design and size of the facilities.

• Annual costs of incident clearance programs range from $200,000 to $300,000 for programs with few vehicles to $24 million for the Los Angeles program, one of the largest in the United States. The total funding for the Freeway Service Patrol program in California alone (through local match and state funds) is more than $40 million (2001 data).

Implementation Challenges 

Though incident management techniques are now widely used in metropolitan areas, incident management has not reached it full potential due to institutional barriers. Lack of coordination between the different agencies involved in the management and clearance process hinders the success of any program. Another challenge is the general public's lack of awareness of what incident management is and what it can do to help alleviate traffic congestion. 
 

Where is it Implemented?

Throughout the United States, Western Europe and "developed" countries.

Author: Indu Sreedevi