User-Friendly Traffic Incident Management (TIM) Program Benefit-Cost Estimation Tool

Traffic Incident Management Overview

Traffic Incident Management Strategies

Table 1⁽⁴⁾ identifies TIM strategies that transportation agencies can employ within their TIM programs. The strategies span all time periods during an incident response and include planning activities before incidents occur, responses to an actual incident, and activities after incidents occur. The strategies can be strategic, tactical, supportive, or a combination of the three.⁽¹³⁾ In table 1, strategies are arranged into five categories based on the suggestion of FHWA’s Best Practices in Traffic Incident Management document.⁽²⁾ Some TIM strategies align with multiple categories, but they are only listed once in the category that best describes the activity in the list. For activities that do not fit into one of the categories from the Best Practices document, a sixth category, “Other,” is created in table 1. A critical synthesis of this topic can be found at in Hudgins et al.⁽¹⁴⁾

Traffic Incident Management Stakeholders

With the variety of TIM strategies available to local agencies, there is an extensive set of potential stakeholders or operators that can be involved in running TIM programs. It is important to note the variety of potential stakeholders in a TIM program because, in most cases, they come from many different agencies.

A truly effective TIM program requires active coordination and cooperation among the various agencies to time responses, maximize the flow of information, and avoid duplication of efforts during an incident. The list below identifies some of the major players in TIM strategy implementation, in addition to the actual roadway users and drivers involved in incidents. ⁽¹⁵⁾

• Law enforcement.
• Fire, rescue, and emergency medical services (EMS).
• Towing and recovery teams.
• Hazardous materials response teams/contractors (in some areas, these teams can be found in the towing and recovery community).
• Medical examiners/coroners.
• Emergency dispatchers.
• DOT/TMC staff.

Benefits of Traffic Incident Management Strategies

Application of TIM strategies could bring significant benefits. For the purpose of estimating benefits and costs, some of these benefits are translated into slightly different measures of effectiveness (MOE) that could be directly quantifiable. The MOEs can be defined as “indirect benefits” of the TIM strategies:

• Reduces congestion.⁽¹⁵⁾
  • Decreases fuel consumption.
  • Minimizes emissions.
  • Diminishes travel time delays.
  • Improves travel time reliability.
  • Lowers vehicle operating costs.
• Boosts efficiency and productivity for local agencies (law enforcement, responders, highway agencies, etc.).⁽⁵⁾
  • Improves customer satisfaction for these agencies.
• Increases the safety of people involved in incidents and other road users.
  • Reduces mortality/morbidity rates.
  • Decreases the opportunity for secondary incidents.⁽¹⁵⁾
• Cuts the number of required law enforcement officers at the scene.⁽¹⁶⁾
• Widens responders’ understanding of how their actions affect the greater community.⁽¹⁵⁾
• Heightens drivers’ confidence.⁽¹⁷⁾

Ultimately, society sees benefits from TIM programs in the forms of improved health, productivity, and safety. A survey conducted in 1997⁽¹⁾ indicated that improved traveler information dissemination resulted in increased driver confidence.

The benefits listed above apply most directly to system users (i.e., drivers and passengers on the roadway) and responding agencies, but they also apply to all travelers and many local businesses or industries because of reduced medical costs to society, diminished burden on the environment, and decreased burdens to productivity.

Costs of Traffic Incident Management Strategies

The following cost elements can result from applying TIM strategies:

• Staffing costs.
• Planning and operations costs, including training.
• Implementation costs, especially for strategies involving infrastructure modifications.
• Equipment procurement, maintenance, and depreciation (vehicles, signs, temporary traffic control devices, lighting, video monitoring, etc.).
  • A major element of equipment upkeep is fuel costs for patrol or response vehicles.
• Information technology systems and support (for communication with other agencies or public).

For the most part, TIM program costs are supported by roadway users through taxes.⁽⁵⁾

Existing Benefit-Cost Estimation Tools

The existing BC estimation tools have two major categories: sketch planning and postprocessing tools. The most popular existing tools for estimating benefits and costs of TIM programs or strategies are listed in table 2.⁽¹⁸⁾

Source: This table is created by the Transportation Benefit-Cost Analysis Web site with the Transportation Economics Committee of the Transportation Research Board (TRB),⁽¹⁹⁾ Booz-Allen & Hamilton Inc.,⁽⁷⁾ Cambridge Systematics,^(8)(20)(21) Concas and Winters,⁽²²⁾ DeCorla-Souza,⁽²³⁾ FHWA,⁽²⁴⁾ FDOT,⁽²⁵⁾ Florida Intelligent Transportation,⁽⁹⁾ Hadi et al.,⁽²⁶⁾ and SAIC.⁽²⁷⁾

Table 3 ⁽¹⁸⁾ describes the differences between sketch planning and postprocessing methods in the fields of geographic scope, budget, turnaround period, staff expertise, and data requirement. It can be seen that the sketch planning approach requires less resources than that of the postprocessing method.