National Conference on Traffic Incident Management
The National Conference on Traffic Incident Management was held March 11-13, 2002, at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center in Irvine, CA and was jointly sponsored the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, ITS America, and the Federal Highway Administration. The purpose of this Conference was to identify issues and actions to improve traffic incident management program planning, field operations, and inter-agency communications. The Conference attracted over 150 professionals and policy-makers from law enforcement agencies, fire departments, the emergency medical services community, state and local transportation organizations, the towing and recovery community, and technology providers. Over 100 action ideas were generated in eighteen breakout sessions covering three categories of issues for traffic incident management: (1) program and institutional issues, (2) on-scene operational issues, and (3) communications and technology issues. The top seven issues identified were:
- Professionalize incident management (Institutional)
- National program models and guidelines (Institutional)
- Creation of standards and guidelines for performance data (Institutional)
- Recognize regional focus in developing, operating, funding TIM technologies (Technical)
- Develop regional/cross-agency systems architectures (based on standards) (Technical)
- Establish a clearinghouse for incident management data (Operational)
- Integrate TIM needs into highway planning and design (Institutional)
More information can be found in the conference proceedings.
One of the primary outcomes of this conference was the formation of a National Traffic Incident Management Coalition. The conference generated enthusiasm for continuing dialogue and collaboration across the several public safety and transportation disciplines present.
