Traffic Incident Management (TIM) Self Assessment National Executive Summary Report
Federal Highway Administration
Office of Operations
October 2003
1. Background and Methodology
Over the past decade, coordinated traffic incident management efforts have gained momentum as more and more transportation agencies seek ways to safely and efficiently handle congestion. Traffic incident management, once considered a disjointed activity fraught with turf battles and jurisdictional conflicts, has, in some places around the country, become a showcase of collaborative efforts between the various traffic incident management stakeholders. The stakeholders are many – the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and other federal agencies, operations and maintenance personnel from state and local Departments of Transportation, police, fire and emergency services, the towing and recovery industry, transportation planners at the local, regional and state level, and the media – and they all play a role in ensuring that incidents are quickly detected, responded to, and cleared with minimum disruption to traffic flow. All this is done while giving first priority to the safety of the motoring public and the responders.
Even with all the success in traffic incident management, a way to measure the effectiveness of these programs is still needed. One of the three objectives of the FHWA’s Vital Few Congestion Goals, over the next five years, is to reduce incident delay by ensuring all States, District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Federal Land offices are engaged in aggressively anticipating and mitigating congestion caused by incidents. In order to measure progress toward achievement of that goal, and to bring about recognized measures for evaluating traffic incident management efforts, the Federal Highway Administration sponsored the development of a Traffic Incident Management (TIM) Self Assessment tool.
The “TIM Self Assessment” is a tool used by state and regional program managers to assess their achievement of a successful multi-agency program to manage traffic incidents effectively and safely. The tool also provides a method to assess gaps and needs in existing multi-agency regional and statewide efforts to mitigate congestion caused by traffic incidents.
The TIM Self Assessment consists of a series of questions designed to allow those with traffic incident management responsibilities to rate their performance in specific organizational and procedural categories. Conducted as a group exercise, the TIM Self Assessment allows for discussion among the group members with the resulting ratings being consensus values. This process provides a medium for enhanced communication between TIM stakeholders to identify specific areas or activities by which the multi-agency management of traffic incidents can be improved.
The ratings are then tallied to provide an overall TIM score for the program. Areas for possible improvement can be identified via individual question ratings. While the score provides a metric for measurement, the most important information will be derived from the discussion of the assessment among the participants. This discussion will provide local agencies valuable information to form or improve a multi-agency program for traffic incident management.
The results of the TIM Self Assessments, as summarized in this Executive Summary and detailed in the full report, will be used by FHWA to determine gaps nationally that need attention and to direct future years’ FHWA program initiatives for traffic incident management.
1.1 Assessment Process and Structure
The TIM Self Assessment consists of 34 questions in three program areas:
1. Program and Institutional Issues
2. Operational Issues
3. Communication and Technology Issues
Accompanying the questions is a TIM Self Assessment Guide that details the assessment process and the questions. Participants are asked to follow a suggested process for the conduct of the assessment:
1) Assemble a team of traffic incident management stakeholders.
2) Include representatives of all agencies participating in TIM for the corridor, region or state.
3) Involve at least one key leader or TIM program manager.
4) Provide participants with the Guide and score sheet in advance so that each can complete the assessment based on their individual understanding of the level of success in each area.
5) Ask the participants to return their completed score sheets in advance of the exercise so average scores could be tallied.
6) Have a designated facilitator for the conduct of the assessment.
7) Review each question and its average score to obtain consensus on the score for each question.
8) Record the discussion and note any strong dissent to the majority opinion on any particular question.
The Guide also explains the scoring process for the assessment. Participants are asked to score their assessment according to the following:
Score each question from 0 to 4, based on your program’s level of progress in each area as detailed below.
Table
1
Scoring Scheme
Score |
Description |
0 |
No progress in this
area. • Has never been discussed. • Has been discussed informally but no action has been taken |
1 |
Very little being
done in this area. • Minimal activity, primarily in one agency • Issue has been acknowledged and is being investigated |
2 |
Efforts in this area
are moderate. Some good processes exist, but they may not be well
integrated/coordinate – results are mixed. • Has been put into practice on a limited or experimental basis. • Some multi-agency agreement cooperation |
3 |
Efforts in this area
are strong and results are promising. However, there is still
room for improvement. • Has become a generally accepted practice but refinements or changes are being discussed or pursued • Good multi-agency cooperation but not yet integrated in operations of all agencies as “standard procedure” |
4 |
Efforts in this area
are outstanding. There is good integration/coordination with good
to excellent results. • Excellent coordination and cooperation among agencies • Policies and procedures are well integrated in operations of all agencies as “standard procedure” |
In addition to scoring the assessment, participants are asked to record the discussion and resulting scores as further detail for their particular assessment.
2. 2003 TIM Self Assessment Results
In its inaugural phase, FHWA planned for TIM Self Assessments to be conducted in the top 75 metropolitan areas. Assessments were conducted from December 2002 through September 2003, with a total of 70 Assessments completed.
Overall, the highest scores
(indicating the greatest amount of/most successful TIM activity) were
found in the Operational Issues. Operational Issues represent 40% of
the score on the assessment and the mean of 22.9% was much higher than
the 11.0% and 12.5% for Program and Institutional Issues and Communication
and Technology Issues, respectively. Each of these areas represented
30% of the score. The overall mean score was 46.5% out of a possible
100%.
Table
2
Mean Score for Each Section
Section |
Number
of Questions |
Mean
Score |
Highest
Possible Score |
| Program and Institutional Issues | 12 |
11.0% |
30% |
| Operational Issues | 14 |
22.9% |
40% |
| Communication and Technology Issues | 8 |
12.5% |
30% |
Overall
Total |
34 |
46.5% |
100% |
3. TIM Assessment – Top 75 Urban Areas
The focus of the Traffic Incident Management Self Assessment is the top 75 urban areas of the United States. The areas defined by the Bureau of the Census are Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Areas, many of which are multi-state areas containing more than one major city. The FHWA Division Offices, in cooperation with state and local partners, determined how to identify logical operational boundaries for assessment purposes. A total of 82 assessments were identified to cover the 75 largest urban areas.
4. Section by Section Results
Figure
1
Mean Scores for All Questions
Program and Institutional
Issues: 4.1.1.1. through 4.1.3.4.
Operational Issues: 4.2.1.1. through 4.2.3.6.
Communication and Technology Issues: 4.3.1.1. through 4.3.3.3.
Data for Figure 1
| Question Number | Mean
Score |
| 4.1.1.1. | 1.4 |
| 4.1.1.2. | 1.7 |
| 4.1.1.3. | 1.8 |
| 4.1.2.1. | 1.9 |
| 4.1.2.2. | 1.9 |
| 4.1.2.3. | 1.3 |
| 4.1.2.4. | 1.5 |
| 4.1.2.5. | 2.5 |
| 4.1.3.1. | 0.6 |
| 4.1.3.2. | 0.6 |
| 4.1.3.3. | 1.3 |
| 4.1.3.4. | 0.7 |
| 4.2.1.1. | 1.6 |
| 4.2.1.2. | 2.9 |
| 4.2.1.3. | 2.8 |
| 4.2.1.4. | 2.2 |
| 4.2.2.1. | 2.0 |
| 4.2.2.2. | 1.9 |
| 4.2.2.3. | 1.4 |
| 4.2.2.4. | 1.4 |
| 4.2.3.1. | 2.5 |
| 4.2.3.2. | 2.5 |
| 4.2.3.3. | 2.9 |
| 4.2.3.4. | 2.0 |
| 4.2.3.5. | 2.9 |
| 4.2.3.6. | 2.8 |
| 4.3.1.1. | 1.7 |
| 4.3.1.2. | 1.5 |
| 4.3.2.1. | 2.0 |
| 4.3.2.2. | 1.9 |
| 4.3.2.3. | 1.5 |
| 4.3.3.1. | 1.6 |
| 4.3.3.2. | 1.9 |
| 4.3.3.3. | 1.0 |
4.1 Program and Institutional Issues
Program and Institutional Issues are those that address how a program is organized, its objectives and priorities, agency roles and relationships, resource allocation and performance measurement.
Figure 2 shows the mean score for each question. Table 3 lists the responses for each question in Program and Institutional Issues, providing the percentage of assessments scoring 3 or higher. Assessments scoring 3 or higher on any particular question demonstrate real success in that particular area as at a minimum the respondents feel that efforts are strong and results promising in the area in question.
Figure 2
Program and Institutional Issues
Data for Figure 2
Question
Number |
Mean
Score |
| 4.1.1.1. | 1.41 |
| 4.1.1.2. | 1.75 |
| 4.1.1.3. | 1.86 |
| 4.1.2.1. | 1.92 |
| 4.1.2.2. | 1.91 |
| 4.1.2.3. | 1.3 |
| 4.1.2.4. | 1.55 |
| 4.1.2.5. | 2.52 |
| 4.1.3.1. | 0.7 |
| 4.1.3.2. | 0.71 |
| 4.1.3.3. | 1.25 |
| 4.1.3.4. | 0.78 |
Table 3
Program and Institutional Issues
Question
Number |
Question |
%
of Assessments Scoring 3 or Higher |
| 4.1.1.1. | Have multi-agency, multi-year strategic plans detailing specific programmatic activities to be accomplished with appropriate budget and personnel needs identified? | 13% |
| 4.1.1.2. | Have formal inter-agency agreements on operational and administrative procedures and policies? | 20% |
| 4.1.1.3. | Have field-level input into the plans ensuring that the plans will be workable by those responsible for their implementation? | 34% |
| 4.1.2.1. | Have formalized TIM multi-agency administrative teams to meet and discuss administrative policy issues? | 31% |
| 4.1.2.2. | Hold regular meetings of the TIM administrative team? | 36% |
| 4.1.2.3. | Conduct training through simulation or “in-field” exercises? | 9% |
| 4.1.2.4. | Conduct post-incident debriefings? | 16% |
| 4.1.2.5. | Conduct planning for special events? |
36% |
| 4.1.3.1. | Have multi-agency agreements on what measures will be tracked and used to measure program performance? | 3% |
| 4.1.3.2. | Have agreed upon methods to collect and analyze/track performance measures? | 3% |
| 4.1.3.3. | Have established targets for performance? | 4% |
| 4.1.3.4. | Conduct periodic review of whether or not progress is being made to achieve targets? | 1% |
| Observations Formal traffic incident management programs are virtually non-existent but interest has increased in establishing more formal inter-agency relationships in recent years, leading to more TIM Administrative Teams and more agencies developing joint policies, procedures and memoranda of understanding. However, very rarely are any multi-agency performance measures tracked or utilized for program improvement. Most locations do not conduct training through simulation or field exercises or conduct multi-agency post-incident debriefings. |
4.2 Operational Issues
Operational issues address the policies, procedures, and processes used in the field while responding to an incident. Designed to maximize safety and reduce response and clearance times, Operational Issues are the nuts and bolts of a TIM program.
Figure 3 shows
the mean score for each question. Table 4 lists the responses for each
question in Operational Issues.
Figure 3
Operational Issues
Data for Figure 3
Question
Number |
Mean
Score |
| 4.2.1.1. | 1.62 |
| 4.2.1.2. | 2.95 |
| 4.2.1.3. | 2.85 |
| 4.2.1.4. | 2.25 |
| 4.2.2.1. | 2.02 |
| 4.2.2.2. | 1.94 |
| 4.2.2.3. | 1.44 |
| 4.2.2.4. | 1.42 |
| 4.2.3.1. | 2.51 |
| 4.2.3.2. | 2.48 |
| 4.2.3.3. | 2.92 |
| 4.2.3.4. | 2 |
| 4.2.3.5. | 2.91 |
| 4.2.3.6. | 2.79 |
Table
4
Operational Issues
Question
Number |
Question |
%
of Assessments Scoring 3 or Higher |
| 4.2.1.1. | Have established criteria for what is a “major incident” – incident levels or codes? | 17% |
| 4.2.1.2. | Identify high ranking agency members available on 24/7 basis to respond to a major incident? | 77% |
| 4.2.1.3. | Have a pre-identified (approved) contact list of resources (including special equipment) for incident clearance and hazardous materials response? | 66% |
| 4.2.1.4. | Have the response equipment pre-staged for timely response? | 44% |
| 4.2.2.1. | Train all responders in traffic control procedures? | 30% |
| 4.2.2.2. | Utilize on-scene traffic control procedures for various levels of incidents in compliance with MUTCD? | 29% |
| 4.2.2.3. | Utilize traffic control procedures for the end of the incident traffic queue? | 14% |
| 4.2.2.4. | Have mutually understood equipment staging and emergency lighting procedures on-site to maximize traffic flow past an incident while providing responder safety? | 16% |
| 4.2.3.1. | Utilize the Incident Command System? | 54% |
| 4.2.3.2. | Have specific policies and procedures for fatal accident investigation? | 51% |
| 4.2.3.3. | Have specific policies and procedures for hazardous materials response? | 69% |
| 4.2.3.4. | Have quick clearance policies? | 36% |
| 4.2.3.5. | Have a pre-qualified list of available and contracted towing and recovery operators (to include operators' capabilities)? | 74% |
| 4.2.3.6. | Use motorist assist service patrols? | 70% |
| Observations Operational issues scored the highest on the assessment, indicative of the fact that even absent a formalized program or sophisticated communication and technology systems, incidents are being cleared. Agencies typically have high ranking members available to respond 24/7 to major incidents and resources for incident clearance and hazardous materials response are readily available. Motorist assist service patrols are gaining greater use resulting in quicker response times. The use of traffic control procedures at the incident scene is one area where improvement is still needed. |
4.3 Communication and Technology Issues
Careful planning for incident response and expedited on-scene procedures will not achieve the desired results if communication between agencies, responders and the motoring public is not present. Communication, and the technology to facilitate it, is a critical part of any Traffic Incident Management program.
Figure 4 shows the mean score for each question. Table 5 lists the responses for each question in Communication and Technology Issues.
Figure 4
Communication and Technology Issues
Data for Figure 4
Question
Number |
Mean
Score |
| 4.3.1.1. | 1.68 |
| 4.3.1.2. | 1.48 |
| 4.3.2.1. | 2.04 |
| 4.3.2.2. | 1.95 |
| 4.3.2.3. | 1.62 |
| 4.3.3.1. | 1.67 |
| 4.3.3.2. | 1.88 |
| 4.3.3.3. | 1.04 |
Table
5
Communication and Technology Issues
Question
Number |
Question |
%
of Assessments Scoring 3 or Higher |
| 4.3.1.1. | Have a two-way interagency voice communications system allowing for direct on-site communications between incident responders? | 19% |
| 4.3.1.2. | Provide data and video information transfer between agencies and applications (TMC-CAD integration)? | 11% |
| 4.3.2.1. | Use Traffic Management Center(s) to coordinate incident notification and response? | 43% |
| 4.3.2.2. | Have a developed technical infrastructure for surveillance and rapid detection of traffic incidents? | 30% |
| 4.3.2.3. | Have specific policies and procedures for traffic management during incident response (i.e. signal timing changes, opening/closing of HOV lanes/ramp metering)? | 21% |
| 4.3.3.1. | Have the ability to merge/integrate and interpret information from multiple sources? | 23% |
| 4.3.3.2. | Have a real-time motorist information system providing incident-specific information? | 24% |
| 4.3.3.3. | Provide motorists with travel time estimates for route segments? | 13% |
| Observations The use of Traffic Management Centers (TMCs) to coordinate incident notification and response is increasing, as is the development of the necessary technical infrastructure for traffic surveillance and rapid detection of incidents. However, progress still must be made in two-way interagency voice communication at the scene, allowing direct communication between responders. Furthermore, agencies must continue to find ways to facilitate data and video information transfer between agencies and applications, as well as ways to collect and disseminate incident and travel time information to motorists. |
5. Conclusions
As shown in Table 6, the top ten highest scoring questions all received a mean score greater than 2, with scores ranging from 2.02 to 2.95. Nine of the top ten high scoring questions were in Operational Issues, with the top five dealing specifically with incident response procedures, either procedures for major incidents or response and clearance policies and procedures.
Table
6
Top 10 Scoring Questions
Question
Number |
Section |
Question |
Mean
Score |
%
of Assessments Scoring 3 or Higher |
| 4.2.1.2. | Operational Issues | Identify high ranking agency members available on 24/7 basis to respond to a major incident? | 2.95 |
77% |
| 4.2.3.3. | Operational Issues | Have specific policies and procedures for hazardous materials response? | 2.92 |
69% |
| 4.2.3.5. | Operational Issues | Have a pre-qualified list of available and contracted towing and recovery operators (to include operators' capabilities)? | 2.91 |
74% |
| 4.2.1.3. | Operational Issues | Have a pre-identified (approved) contact list of resources (including special equipment) for incident clearance and hazardous materials response? | 2.85 |
66% |
| 4.2.3.6. | Operational Issues | Use motorist assist service patrols? | 2.79 |
70% |
| 4.1.2.5. | Program and Institutional Issues | Conduct planning for “special events” | 2.52 |
36% |
| 4.2.3.1. | Operational Issues | Utilize the Incident Command System? | 2.51 |
54% |
| 4.2.3.2. | Operational Issues | Have specific policies and procedures for fatal accident investigation? | 2.48 |
51% |
| 4.2.1.4. | Operational Issues | Have the response equipment pre-staged for timely response? | 2.25 |
44% |
| 4.2.2.1. | Operational Issues | Train all responders in traffic control procedures? | 2.02 |
30% |
Of the ten lowest scoring questions, all had a mean score less than 2, ranging from .70 to 1.48. Six of the lowest scoring questions were in Program and Institutional Issues with the remaining four divided two each in Operational Issues and Communication and Technology Issues.
Three of the four questions concerning performance measures were the three lowest scoring questions on the assessments, each with a mean score less than 1 and no more than 3% of the assessments scoring any of the three questions 3 or higher. This may point to the continuing difficulty in quantifying the benefits of TIM initiatives absent any specific metrics by which to track progress.
Table
7
Bottom 10 Scoring Questions
Question
Number |
Section |
Question |
Mean
Score |
%
of Assessments Scoring 3 or Higher |
| 4.1.3.1. | Program and Institutional Issues | Have multi-agency agreements on what measures will be tracked and used to measure program performance? | .70 |
3% |
| 4.1.3.2. | Program and Institutional Issues | Have agreed upon methods to collect and analyze/track performance measures? | .71 |
3% |
| 4.1.3.4. | Program and Institutional Issues | Conduct periodic review of whether or not progress is being made to achieve targets? | .78 |
1% |
| 4.3.3.3. | Communication and Technology Issues | Provide motorists with travel time estimates for route segments? | 1.04 |
13% |
| 4.1.3.3. | Program and Institutional Issues | Have established targets for performance? | 1.25 |
4% |
| 4.1.2.3. | Program and Institutional Issues | Conduct training through simulation or “in-field” exercises? | 1.30 |
9% |
| 4.1.1.1. | Program and Institutional Issues | Have multi-agency, multi-year strategic plans detailing specific programmatic activities to be accomplished with appropriate budget and personnel needs identified? | 1.41 |
13% |
| 4.2.2.4. | Operational Issues | Have mutually understood equipment staging and emergency lighting procedures on-site to maximize traffic flow past an incident while providing responder safety? | 1.42 |
16% |
| 4.2.2.3. | Operational Issues | Utilize traffic control procedures for the end of the incident traffic queue? | 1.44 |
14% |
| 4.3.1.2. | Communication and Technology Issues | Provide data and video information transfer between agencies and applications (TMC-CAD integration)? | 1.48 |
11% |
It comes as no surprise that Operational Issues received the highest scores as part of the TIM Self Assessment. Even absent any coordinated Traffic Incident Management activities, Operational Issues would, to some extent, have to be addressed as part of any incident response. Furthermore, addressing Operational Issues does not involve overcoming institutional barriers or resource constraints to the degree that Program and Institutional Issues and Communication and Technology Issues do, respectively.
The fact that Communication and Technology Issues scored somewhat higher (12.5% versus 11.0%) than Program and Institutional Issues might indicate that agencies continue to invest in technology solutions for traffic incident management without having fully resolved the institutional barriers that would maximize the use of those technologies. This might be the result of the relative ease in investing in technology versus addressing the underlying institutional issues.
There continues to be a noticeable range of effectiveness among Traffic Incident Management programs in the top 75 metropolitan areas. Given that the problems faced by these top areas are similar (e.g. congestion, capacity constraints, incident mitigation, recovery times), the variance of results may point to a lack of effort in coordinated TIM initiatives, or more possibly, a lack of high-level support for such activities. Clearly, no amount of commitment among field-level practitioners can achieve maximum effectiveness without adequate support and resources from the highest levels.
The purpose of the Traffic Incident Management Self Assessment was to identify those areas where success has been achieved as well as those where more attention needs to be directed. The assessment will help State and local TIM practitioners identify specific program initiatives to improve those areas identified by low scores and build on the success already achieved in other program areas.
From the baseline established
in this round of TIM Self Assessments, it is recommended that, after
some refinement, a similar TIM Self Assessment exercise be undertaken
biennially to measure improvement. This will not only provide a metric
for improvement, but will result in the continued exchange of best practices
among practitioners, and ultimately the continued improvement of all
TIM programs.
