 There is a game that is played every day by millions of Americans. It's called the urban freeway ordeal or UFO The object of the game is to get where you're going in a reasonable amount of time Lane closed 15 minute delay Incident cleared Proceed the real players are the police transportation department government officials and legislators who are responsible for Rating the highway system Two lanes closed 40 minute delay insufficient response further delay Editorial in tomorrow's paper Incident cleared Proceed when the players make the wrong decision the real losers are the taxpayers Who need the highways to get to work deliver the goods and carry on the commerce of the area overturned All lanes blocked insufficient response Further delay editorial in paper TV crew at your office insufficient response Further delay Fuel spill secondary accident Maintenance closure Mayor on phone insufficient response Further delay rain Two breakdowns Multifemical accident Hazardous materials spill Livestock loose on opposing lane Governor wants you in his office tomorrow insufficient response Too late you lose We have total eternal gridlock Fortunately real life is nothing at all like UFO. It only seems that way sometimes But the fact is that millions of dollars and thousands of hours are lost due to incidents on the nation's highways In both rural and urban areas capacity is strained by increasing traffic The driving public is more aware of the effects of increasing delays They demand that something be done by the people whose responsibility it is to keep the roads open That's something is freeway incident management But how serious is the problem? Truck incidents on the washington dc beltway caused 10 million dollars a year in delay accident and cleanup costs Freeway incidents of all types in california cost 100 million dollars a year By 2005 experts estimate the cost of freeway incidents at over 90 billion dollars nationwide What are the mechanics of incident delay? What must be done? A simple breakdown can cause traffic to slow down due to gawking on the part of other drivers Capacity can be reduced by up to 20 percent Block a lane and capacity drops by 50 percent If two lanes are blocked 80 percent of capacity may be lost Even after the blockage has been cleared congestion will continue By the time drivers reach the accident site everything will be gone and they'll wonder what the problem was They drive away mad mad at the police mad at the highway department mad at the government How do we respond? Incident management has been practiced for many years across the country Bridge and tunnel authorities realized the need for incident management plans long ago During this time many proven cost-effective techniques have been developed that will work in urban or rural areas The current emphasis on advanced technology will provide even more tools However, the most important thing to realize when embarking on an incident management program Is that many of the procedures are simple low cost and can be accomplished with the resources at hand Even the smallest effort can have dramatic results What modern incident management does call for are new attitudes ways of thinking high levels of cooperation And coordination between agencies As public awareness of traffic congestion increases. So does the urgency to address the problem In fairfax county, virginia. They found what a little new thinking can do The traffic division of the fairfax county police department was given a clear mandate To try its best to coordinate all transportation related incidents and to efficiently clear them from the roads This is something that hadn't been done before Each entity the virginia state police the fairfax county police the fire and rescue services and the virginia department of transportation handled their own portions of an incident pretty much isolated from each other What we found was that by talking to each other we could more readily resolve these incidents and prevent some of the ones that were occurring This was accomplished just by simple communication We were able to beat down some of the barriers that were perceived such as engineers not wanting to talk To traffic cops or one agency not working well with another one Now what we have is a very cohesive response to virtually any traffic incident that occurs whether it's a crash Disabled vehicle or simple traffic light malfunction We work in a coordinated effort to reduce the amount of delay on the roads roadways in northern virginia Once the proper institutional framework has been established The next step in controlling incidents is to find them quickly and gather the data necessary to make the right decisions The los angeles traffic management center demonstrates the state of the art and underscores the importance of interagency cooperation A traffic management systems center gathers information on traffic flow from a number of sources It can monitor an entire corridor for problems. There are many proven methods of detection Police and transportation department vehicles are a vital source of information As are motorist call boxes Public transit systems radio can be organized to provide on-site information In some jurisdictions motorists are using cellular phones to call 911 and report incidents Traffic reporting services can be tied into the system at almost no extra cost Once a problem has been discovered the proper response needs to be made A proper response is one that meets needs at an appropriate level You don't need a sand truck at a simple breakdown. You don't want to wait long for one at a fuel spill These are judgment calls that need to be made by experienced personnel as quickly as possible The surface patrol is one of the best and most cost efficient levels of response Over three quarters of all incidents in urban areas are minor breakdowns Which cause delay far out of proportion to their seriousness There's just so many of them flat tires running out of gas engines overheating Most of the time these problems can be fixed quickly often within minutes Provided they are detected quickly and the appropriate assistance is provided In those locales where a dedicated service patrol is not justified A contract with a private towing company can perform the same service Of course not all incidents are minor As time and the increased demands on freeway capacity take their tolls scenes like these are all too common A community needs a menu of responses for every level of incident breakdown service vehicle accident tow trucks Injuries ambulance medevac if need be Cranes sand fire trucks police media public information Alternate routes and detours cleanup equipment When all that's ready the trick is to have what's needed on its way as soon as possible When something happens you need to know what has occurred and how bad it is as soon as you can It's kind of like triage and the team must be ready to react Imagination can be the first step in solving the incident problem In Dayton, Ohio They found that they could improve the traffic management situation with a small investment in resources and new levels of A few years ago in the area just beyond me there was a 9200 gallon propane tanker truck that overturned the result Was a huge fireball which necessitated the closing of interstate 75 in both directions A 2d tour routes were established one for north and one for southbound traffic And we used on-duty police officers to facilitate the movement of that traffic After this incident we conducted a critique and three things really came to the fore First was the fact that our police department was unprepared to offer a coordinated approach to this particular incident Second was from the management perspective. We used way too many resources of the department particularly in terms of manpower And lastly we wondered how many individuals were on i-75 and when they were detour because of their unfamiliarity with Dayton became lost in our city The police department got in touch with the city traffic department and brought in people from other departments within the city Together they designed the i-75 emergency rerouting plan This plan establishes detours throughout the section of i-75 that runs through Dayton When an incident occurs they modify existing signs to accommodate detour routing That way the system is in operation quickly The traffic signs along the detour route have a hinged flap that turn it into an i-75 detour route marker This helps avoid driver confusion and guides them efficiently back to the interstate facility There are also portable detour signs for use in strategic locations Dayton police officers have been briefed on how to react to interstate closures They watch a video program about the necessary steps to better incident management The detour plans will be placed on computers so that the officer in the patrol car can call up the information right there Freeway incident management should not be just for those large metropolitan areas When law enforcement managers and traffic engineers get together and cooperate one with another both small and medium-sized cities such as Dayton Ohio can come up with a plan that would fit their particular needs While the incident is being cleared traffic builds up congestion has a way of feeding on itself Incidents can cause additional incidents secondary accidents breakdowns overheating Plans must be in place to detour traffic as quickly as possible and divert others from the incident area Drivers want to know what's happening Depending on the situation different communications media can speed the latest information to the motoring public Traffic reporting services highway advisory radio changeable message signs are all ways of getting the word out Effective coordinated traffic management goes a long way toward minimizing disruption of schedules and deliveries Studies also show that driver frustration decreases sharply if people know what's going on Rural areas are not exempt from the need for coordinated incident management The collapse of the sco harry bridge on the new york state throughway Showed the impact that a major incident in a rural area can have on adjoining communities The 559 mile new york state throughway is the major interstate highway in new york that serves Not only the urban areas but the bulk of the rural areas as well One of the major tasks after the collapse of the sco harry creek bridge in 1987 Was to develop an immediate detour plan that would serve not only the Cars but the heavy trucking traffic that was using the throughway prior to that time We learned very quickly from this incident that to have put such a detour plan in place before the fact In other words to have done some incident management Would have been a far better and quicker approach to Solving that kind of a problem than to be doing it after the fact once the bridge collapsed Developing a plan is important maintaining and updating it on a regular basis is even more important Periodic meetings attended by all the agencies involved in operating the corridor are an important part of plan management This is a forum for people to air new ideas suggest improvements and analyze past performance Each incident responded to provides a gauge on how well the plan is operating In addition simulations can be run to help be ready for major events that have to be coped with Not all incidents are bolts from the blue many can be planned for well in advance Every summer the corridor between washington baltimore and the beach at ocean city maryland is jammed with cars heading east on friday and west on sunday Every year from late spring to early fall Hundreds of thousands of people rush to maryland's beaches on our beautiful eastern shore They've created some of the worst traffic jams in the history of our state They all seem to travel at the same time Our governor asked us to get together and come up with a program that would make that trip easier and safer We organized a team with local government state government police and transportation officials We call our program reach the beach We made the trip a little more pleasant and a little bit safer for everyone A master plan was developed to increase and maintain corridor capacity that consisted of two main thrusts The first was to upgrade existing roads. The second was to institute incident management The road improvements included widening sections of highway replacing signalized intersections with interchanges and construction of new bridges The incident management portion of the plan consists of a multi-jurisdictional task force And a field operations unit managed from the reach the beach communication center at the chesapeake bay bridge We begin our operations around noon on friday when traffic begins to pick up heavily We have a communications network established all along the carter between the state highway administration the maryland state police And other agencies to keep us informed of any problems which occur Most of our incidents do involve cars and not heavy vehicles So we don't have to have a lot of emergency equipment pre-position to get heavy loads out of the way although it is available if we need it We have courtesy patrol vehicles Including motorcycles and sha vans with push bumpers arrow boards water jugs Jumper cables and other equipment to help get vehicles off the road into a safe position We have incident management plans in case a major incident occurs And also plans to help emergency vehicles get along the back roads To and from the hospital areas state police motorcycles can quickly get to an incident and we have an airplane in the air conducting aerial surveillance All this ties together to keep us well informed and respond quickly to an incident Accurate communications is vital to effective incident management Information must flow from the site of an incident to the communication center to the response team then to the motoring public Whenever there's an incident along the corridor, we have to get information to people for two reasons First of all if possible, we want to try and divert them around the incident Get them on an alternate route And second we want to lower their frustration level Nothing is worse than sitting in a queue of traffic and not knowing why or not knowing what's going on ahead of you We use two important communications tools the variable message sign and the traveler's advisory radio These can be programmed from our traffic information center and provide up to the minute information We have a representative from metro traffic control the nation's largest traffic reporting service at the tic And he provides information to commercial radio stations in both the baltimore and washington markets We have an 800 number that people can call into for the latest traffic information along the beach corridor And every weekend we receive thousands and thousands of calls We feel that we must be doing something right I've seen a lot of complimentary letters from grateful motorists and i've seen wonderfully complimentary editorials in the newspapers As we've seen a successful incident management program can range from a very simple low-cost approach To a highly sophisticated system such as reach the beach But regardless of the level of sophistication all programs share a common framework A means to detect and verify that an incident has occurred A pre-planned response appropriate to the size and type of incident An efficient coordinated on-site effort to clear the incident quickly A method to get information out to the driving public Successful incident management programs play an important part in keeping the traffic moving on our nation's highways It's a major task and an increasingly necessary one as the demand on our roadways continues to rise There's no avoiding the reality and urgency of the situation More cars and trucks crowd the highways every year Accidents are going to happen. There are always going to be breakdowns We'll never be able to control that what we can control is how effectively we deal with incidents and how the public feels about our efforts Successful incident management is a proven way to save time money lives And keep the traffic rolling