Unmanned Aircraft Systems for Traffic Incident Management

Chapter 2. Unmanned Aircraft Systems for Traffic Incident Management

Quick Clearance Strategy

The typical traffic incident management begins with arrival on-scene and management of critical first actions, like assessing injuries, implementing Traffic Incident Management (TIM) procedures, and seeking assistance from and coordinating with other response agencies. Documenting the characteristics of roadway incidents is an important part of clearing events from the roadway and subsequently clearing the scene.

While reliable and inexpensive, manual data collection techniques are increasingly giving way to technology that can accomplish the task with greater speed. Close range photogrammetry, Total Station, and three-dimensional (3D) Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation (Laser) Mapping are key technologies that are moving the needle in crash scene mapping.

Figure 3. Photo. Example of measurements from photographs.
(Source. North Carolina Department of Transportation.)

While technology has advanced traffic crash investigation and reconstruction significantly, the emergence of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) promises to provide another significant leap forward. Combining the well-established science of photogrammetry with aerial photography a new era of traffic crash measurement and scene documentation is taking place. Studies have demonstrated that the ability to obtain centimeter (cm) accuracy in measurements is possible with UAS.^{11, 12} More importantly, the use of UAS has shown significant time savings, enabling responders to clear the roadway and the scene much faster than before. Finally, the price point for entry into UAS may allow agencies to have multiple units in the field, eliminating the need to retrieve more expensive technology from a storage location or the need to respond to another officer in possession of a 3D scanner or Total Station.

Unmanned Aircraft Systems for Other Traffic Incident Management-Related Purposes

The time saving advantage of using UAS for traffic crash mapping and modeling is easily understood compared to other technologies. The potential of the technology for other TIM-related purposes is less understood. Like many new tools, experimentation will likely unleash the creativity of people to solve problems in new ways. One can envision a few places where UAS might help with TIM. The following activities might be augmented by UAS:

• Situational Awareness.
• Detour Route Monitoring.
• Incident Verification.
• Queue Detection and Monitoring.
• Secondary Crash Detection.

The Texas A&M Transportation Institute reviewed a number of UAS-TIM functions to demonstrate the potential for UAS to accomplish these functions.¹³ The research team established that UAS was capable of incident verification and monitoring traffic incidents, alternate routes, and queuing.

The Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) can securely access a live video feed from an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) available to any authorized user via Internet Protocol (IP) address. The agency recently provided the State Emergency Operations Center with images of traffic congestion at a South Florida health testing facility. These are shown in figure 4.

Figure 4. Screenshot. Florida Highway Patrol unmanned aerial vehicle live feed images.
(Source: Florida Highway Patrol.)

The North Carolina State Highway Patrol provided video images and photographs of roadway flooding during 2018 tropical storm and hurricane events. Following Hurricane Michael, the FHP flew similar missions to detect queues on Interstate 10. Examples of these images are shown in figure 5.

Figure 5. Photo. Emergency applications for unmanned aircraft systems.
(Source: Federal Highway Administration and Florida Highway Patrol.)

The towing and recovery industry is an important part of traffic incident management and they are beginning to use UAS for complex recovery operations at roadway incidents. There is also an opportunity for towing and recovery to use UAS to review incident scenes before they respond, ensuring that they understand the situation and bring the appropriate equipment.¹⁴ Sample images from a tow operator in Florida are shown in figure 6.

Figure 6. Photo. Roadway images to support tow operator assessment.
(Source: Superior Towing, Davie, Florida.)

Planned special events are another application of UAS, particularly as it relates to the movement of people and vehicles. In Daytona Beach, the Police Department has acquired four UAS specifically for use in planned special events like the Daytona 500 race and “Bike Week.”¹⁵

The National TIM Responder Training Program advances the state of the practice nationally for TIM. Through mid-2020, almost 500,000 U.S. responders had been trained in one of the several delivery mechanisms for the program. The Puerto Rico Police Academy used UAS as part of their TIM training to bring a different perspective to their TIM training practicum that was held on a closed parking lot with actual response vehicles. With UAS, trainers were able to conduct live training and then bring an aerial view back into the classroom for discussion. Figure 7 is an image from the Puerto Rico TIM training.

Figure 7. Photo. Puerto Rico Traffic Incident Management training practicum with UAS.
(Source: Puerto Rico Police Academy.)