Third Senior Executive Transportation and Public Safety Summit: Final Report

12. Participants' Recommendations from the Summit

The summit included time for all participants to share thoughts and offer suggestions to make the practice of traffic incident management (TIM) routine at every level of operations within the United States. These inputs coalesced to identify eight recommendations to advance the practice of TIM:

1. Recommit to the goal of one million responders trained. Agencies should focus on strategies that introduce accreditation of the National TIM Responder Training course among training bodies; that require training within responder communities; that increase adoption of training within public safety academies; that organically expand training from where it is already to a routine practice; and that promote the course through associations that represent State and local communities, such as Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE), National League of Cities (NLC), National Association of Counties (NACo), and National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL).
2. Inform elected officials on the importance of TIM. Work with government official associations, including the National Governors Association (NGA), NACo, NLC, NCSL, and others to share a clear and impactful TIM business case to meet local needs.
3. Make sure local agencies are aware of and understand the value of TIM. Many local public works, law enforcement, and other responder communities are not familiar with the term "TIM"; or the benefit in adopting the suite of TIM strategies, tools, and techniques. Leverage partners' publication print, web presence, and social media to inform local agencies about TIM strategies, training, and tools.
4. Nurture relationships that will help change driver behavior towards TIM. The FHWA, working in collaboration with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA); and through partnerships with associations, such as American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA), American Automobile Association (AAA), and American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), can reach travelers with the "Slow Down and Move Over" message. Technology such as mobile apps for commercial motor vehicles and personal vehicles also may offer a direct channel to help change driver behavior.
5. Refresh and refine the TIM National Unified Goal (NUG). The NUG, created in 2007, defined three goals: responder safety; safe, quick clearance; and prompt, reliable, interoperable communications. The NUG also identified 18 strategies to support the three goals. Now over a decade later, these strategies and goals should be refreshed and refined as before, by major national organizations representing traffic incident responders, to advance TIM for the next decade.
6. Make routine and consistent, the collection of and sharing of TIM performance measures. While the FHWA Every Day Counts Round Four (EDC-4) helped advance the collection, sharing, analysis, and use of TIM data to improve programs, much work remains. Re-engage regions to benchmark, compare, and progress through more granular responder training statistics, roadway and incident clearance times, responder struck-by events, and near misses, as well as more comprehensive and detailed data that directly supports TIM program improvements.
7. Share Best Practices related to new technologies, tools, techniques to help responder communities accelerate computer-aided dispatch (CAD) integration, unmanned aerial system (UAS), crowdsourcing, and other technologies that improve TIM.
8. Fund research and demonstration related to TIM. Through Transportation Research Board (TRB), the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHTO), and other entities, support research to help practitioners. Some examples include good practices and methodological guidance for TIM performance measurement, large truck involvement in responder struck-by and secondary crashes, what elements of TIM are most effective in rural and arterial environments, or how towing and recovery contracting practices can improve responder safety and incident clearance times.

These eight recommendations will serve as priorities for the broader TIM communities, including the FHWA TIM Program, the TIM Executive Leadership Group, the 20+ associations and organizations participating in the summit, and the many other Federal and State agencies that can affect change and advance safe, quick clearance of roadway incidents.