Overview

The costs of non-recurrent congestion caused by traffic incidents are well-documented. Integrating ITS technologies into traffic surveillance systems promises to reduce these costs by improving transportation authorities' ability to detect and clear incidents. The resulting Incident Management Programs consist of three major elements: Traffic Surveillance (incident detection and verification), Clearance, and Motorist Information. Each of the links provide a detailed description of the performance of ITS technologies applied to incident management. See our Telecommunications Diagram on Incident Detection and Incident Reports via Commercial TV and Radio.

In the United States, several state and metropolitan transportation authorities have implemented incident management programs, relying on different technologies to perform the surveillance, detection, clearance, and information tasks. In several instances, incident management efforts are coordinated from a Transportation Management Center: this is a traffic operations center that receives and process traffic information and data from several sources.