Federal Highway Administration Focus States Initiative: Traffic Incident Management Performance Measures Final Report

Focus States Initiative Overview

The TIM PM FSI task comprised in three phases:

• Phase I brought the 11 States together to identify the candidate performance measures, to select measures for testing, and to develop an Action Plan for conducting the test.
• Phase II consisted of an 18-month performance measurement test where each State implemented its Action Plan.
• Phase III involved a final workshop where States discussed their implementation results and identified next steps for continuing the development of performance measurement, in particular, identifying opportunities for FHWA to continue providing support for TIM performance measurement.

Figure 1. TIM PM FSI Implementation Overview.

For Phase I, FHWA divided the 11 States into two groups. This enabled transportation and law enforcement representatives from each State to meet. FHWA conducted two concurrent regional workshops, one held in McLean, Virginia, and the second in Sacramento, California, in September 2005. FHWA viewed the participation of law enforcement agencies as critical, since they play the lead role in traffic incident operations and respond to many more incidents than State DOTs. The State law enforcement agencies possess a vast collection of incident data that is valuable in the development of any developing coordinated regional TIM program. For these reasons, law enforcement participation in the development of TIM performance measures is critical to the success of TIM program performance improvements.

FHWA sponsored these workshops to gain input and support from State DOT representatives, law enforcement practitioners, and FHWA Division and Resource Center representatives to collaboratively define a core set of program-level TIM PMs. Table 3 summarizes the list of overall candidate objectives and proposed performance measures defined at the two regional workshops.

Table 3. Candidate Program-Level TIM Objectives and Performance Measures

Candidate Objective	Proposed Performance Measure(s)
Reduce incident notification time (defined as the time between the first agency's awareness of an incident, and the time to notify needed response agencies).	The time between the first agency's awareness of an incident, and the time to notify needed response agencies.
Reduce roadway clearance time (defined as the time between awareness of an incident and restoration of lanes to full operational status.	Time between first recordable awareness (detection/ notification/ verification) of incident by a responsible agency and first confirmation that all lanes are available for traffic flow.
Reduce incident clearance time (defined as the time between awareness of an incident and removal of all evidence of the incident, including debris or remaining assets, from shoulders).	Time between first recordable awareness (detection/ notification/verification) of incident by a responsible agency and time at which all evidence of incident is removed (including debris cleared from the shoulder). Time between first recordable awareness and time at which the last responder has left the scene.
Reduce "recovery" time (defined as between awareness of an incident and restoration of impacted roadway/ roadways to "normal" conditions).	Time between awareness of an incident and restoration of impacted roadway/roadways to "normal" conditions. (NOTE: Participants noted that "normal" conditions could be difficult to define.)
Reduce time for needed responders to arrive on-scene after notification.	Time between notification and arrival of first qualified response person to arrive on incident scene.
Reduce number of secondary incidents and severity of primary and secondary incidents.	# of total incidents (regardless of primary or secondary) and severity of primary incidents (National Highway Transportation Safety Administration [NHTSA] classification). # of secondary of incidents and severity (NHTSA classification). # fatalities.
Develop and ensure familiarity with regional, multi-disciplinary TIM goals and objectives and supporting procedures by all stakeholders.	Existence/availability of program-level plan for implementing traffic control devices and/or procedures. Existence of/participation in multi-agency/jurisdictional training programs on the effective use of traffic control/staging devices and procedures. % of workforce trained on National Incident Management System as well as local/ regional/ "program-level" procedures. % of agencies with active, up-to-date Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) for program-level TIM. # of certified courses taken. # of attendees at various courses.
Improve communication between responders and managers regarding the status of an incident throughout the incident.	# or % of agencies with a need to communicate, who are able to communicate (sharing information or communications systems) within an incident.
Provide timely, accurate, and useful traveler information to the motoring public on regular basis during incident.	Comparison of information provided at any given time to what information could have been provided. Customer perceptions on usefulness of information provided. Time of updates to various sources. # of minutes it takes to disseminate informational updates to the public (after something changes regarding incident status). # of sources of information to the public. # of system miles that are covered/density of coverage by traveler information systems (seek to increase these).
Regularly evaluate and use customer (road user) feedback to improve TIM program assets and practices.	% incidents managed in accordance with program-level procedures. % of incidents for which multi-agency reviews occur. Perceived effectiveness (by involved stakeholders) of use of traffic control devices to achieve incident management goals developed for each incident. Correlation of use of program-level traffic control devices by incident type. # of instances of sending the needed equipment (presumes that needed quantities and types of equipment are defined) for the incident. Frequency of dissemination of multi-agency/program-level and customer feedback back to partners. Measures of customer feedback: # Web site feedback. # of surveys conducted/focus groups. # of complaint logs. # of service patrol comment cards. # of 1-800 feedback system calls. # of sources of information to the public (# of media/government outlets providing information). # of 511 calls.

After the concurrent workshops, participants from all 11 States met in Dallas in December 2005 to develop consensus on performance objectives and identify a few good measures that they could use in their States. All 11 States developed an Action Plan to pursue TIM performance measurement in their States by identifying how to conduct the test of the two measures.⁵ Table 4 identifies the two program-level performance measures selected for testing by the States.

Table 4. Candidate TIM Performance Measures Based on Candidate Objectives

Candidate Objectives	Proposed Performance Measures
Reduce roadway clearance time (defined as the time between awareness of an incident and restoration of lanes to full operational status.	Time between first recordable awareness of incident by a responsible agency and first confirmation that all lanes are available for traffic flow.
Reduce incident clearance time (defined as the time between awareness of an incident and removal of all evidence of the incident, including debris or remaining assets, from shoulders).	Time between first recordable awareness of incident by a responsible agency and time at which the last responder has left the scene.

Following the Dallas workshop, the participating States then agreed to test the selected performance measures over an 18-month period during Phase II. In Phase III, FHWA hosted a final task workshop in Milwaukee. There, the States reported on progress made in implementing the two performance measurements during. The workshop objectives included:

1. A presentation of States' status reports on the implementation of State Action Plans.
2. Discussions of lessons learned-institutional, technical integration, and data exchange-and how States were or were not able to resolve issues they encountered.
3. Development of outreach strategies, including materials needed to support the development of TIM programs and TIM performance measurements.
4. An initial discussion on a common definition of secondary incidents.
5. The identification of areas where FHWA could assist with the adoption of TIM performance measurements.

To address the first workshop objective, each State presented an update on their progress in implementing its State Action Plan. Following the progress updates, FHWA facilitated discussions to gain participant input and experience to support the remaining workshop objectives. The results from the workshop were submitted to FHWA in December 2007.⁶

During the final Phase III workshop in Milwaukee, FHWA asked participants to work on developing a common definition for secondary incidents. Participants opened the discussion with a general understanding that secondary incidents are crashes or other incidents resulting from immediate factors associated with a previous incident. The participants noted that the definition is subjective.

Discussing a secondary incidents definition and data collection methods for this metric, participants identified the following issues for consideration:

• Secondary incidents resulting from rear-end crashes. A common type of secondary incident involves rear-end crashes caused by unexpected slowing as a result of a primary incident. However, participants noted that rear-end crashes result from two factors: capacity and an existing incident. In identifying secondary incidents, participants stated that capacity crashes should be filtered out so as not to overstate the number of secondary incidents.
• Secondary incidents resulting from an unplanned incident/event occurring during recurring congestion. Participants noted that recurring congestion is considered a planned incident/event and that incidents that occur during such an incident/event should not be considered as secondary incidents. Secondary incidents should be incidents occurring as a result of an unplanned incident/event that result in a non-recurring queue.
• Need to establish a time or distance parameter used in defining secondary incidents. Participants discussed the need to establish a time or distance parameter to use in defining secondary incidents. One State indicated that secondary incidents are defined as incidents that occur within 2 miles and/or 2 hours of a primary incident. The State also indicated that incidents occurring within one-half mile and/or one-half hour of primary crash in the opposite direction are also considered secondary.
• Need to provide training to incident responders to preclude subjective determination in properly identifying secondary incidents associated with non-recurring congestion. Secondary incidents often are based on the investigating officer's determination that the incident is a secondary incident. This can be subjective and participants stated that training would be required for officers (and other incident responders) on how to properly determine that a crash or incident is in fact secondary, and is associated with non-recurring congestion.
• Need to establish criteria to define a secondary incident as any incident that would not have occurred given the lack of a primary incident. One discriminator identified by participants in defining secondary incidents was to establish criteria that a secondary incident is any incident that most likely would not have happened given the lack of the primary incident. However, participants cautioned that defining an incident as secondary can create huge liability issues for responders. For example, if responders had properly handled a primary incident, the secondary incident would not have occurred; therefore, the secondary incident is the direct responsibility of the responders.

The participants agreed that the following statement represented a good start to developing a common definition for secondary incidents. However, the participants did not reach consensus on this definition:

Unplanned incidents (starting at the time of detection) for which a response or intervention is taken, where a collision occurs either a) within the incident scene or b) within the queue (which could include the opposite direction) resulting from the original incidents.

Participants used the results of the facilitated discussion to establish the third performance measure related to secondary incidents, as presented in Table 5.

Table 5. Candidate for Third TIM Performance Measures Based on Candidate Objectives

TIM Program Objective	Related Performance Measure
(NEWEST) Reduce the number of secondary incidents - specifically unplanned incidents for which a response or intervention is taken, where a collision occurs either a) within the incident scene or b) within the queue (which could include opposite direction) resulting from the original incident.	Number of unplanned incidents beginning with the time of detection of the primary incident where a collision occurs either a) within the incident scene or b) within the queue, including the opposite direction, resulting from the original incident.

Phase III of the TIM performance measurements FSI also addressed development of an outreach strategy and outreach materials for use by States interested in establishing TIM PM. The Statement of Work (SOW) produced by the Focus States identified and defined three deliverables in support of outreach efforts promoting TIM performance measures: 1) What message or messages should be delivered; 2) key issues that needed to be addressed; and 3) what supporting documentation should be highlighted in the materials.

Footnotes

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