Traffic Incident Management
Various traffic incident management scenes - heavy traffic after accident, traffic planning, police car blocking road, overturned car on bridge, detour, rescue workers.
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Service Patrols

About > TIM > On-scene operations > Response and Clearance Procedures and Policies > Service Patrols

Service patrols have existed for many years. They were originally assistant patrols for travelers on holiday weekends. With the advent of freeways and the Interstate system service patrols began to take on an important operational function. Today service patrols still travel established routes providing assistance to stranded motorists but to call them "motorist assistance" or "courtesy" patrols belies their operational significance. Many service patrol vehicles have push bumpers and can move stalled or disabled vehicles out of traffic lanes to the shoulder of the roadway. At larger incidents service patrols provide a vital traffic control function for the safety of travelers and incident responders. Service patrols are usually operated directly by or under contract to a State Department of Transportation. As such, they can be the on-scene eyes and ears for a traffic management center increasing the promptness and accuracy of information about an incident's impact to the traveling public. They can also provide a variety of other services such as plugging and containing incidental fuel and engine fluid spills and pumping off fuel from saddle tanks of overturned trucks. They also clean up debris from the roadway and assist in recovery and cleanup of spilled loads from commercial vehicles.

The FHWA encourages transportation agencies to take aggressive ownership of the roadways under their jurisdiction by moving toward 24/7/365 operational status on them especially through the operation of service patrol fleets. While traffic congestion is generally not an issue in the late night hours, safety is. Visibility is limited and drivers don't expect to be stopped. A service patrol providing traffic control at incident scene gains enormous credibility with the public safety responders who will be there regardless of the time or weather. Public safety responders who come to regard service patrols as full-time emergency response partners will be far more cooperative about parking, staging and moving their vehicles and resources at other incidents to keep as many lanes open as safely possible.

Resources

Safety Service Patrol Handbook provides an overview of the Full-Function Service Patrol (FFSP) and describes desired program characteristics from the viewpoint of an agency that is responsible for funding, managing, and operating the services. Presented guidelines and rules of thumb illustrate operational characteristics, sponsorship, level of service, number of vehicles needed, vehicle types and equipment, patrol frequency, operator and manager training, and services provided. The primary audience for the Handbook comprises State department of transportation (DOT) decision-makers, managers, operators, and practitioners who are responsible for, or are considering, implementing an FFSP program as part of a strategy to reduce congestion.

  • Service Patrol Handbook (HTML, PDF 5.1MB) (Publication Number: FHWA-HOP-08-031, July 2008)

Safety Service Patrol (SSP) fact sheet developed by FHWA (2018).

Safe Highways.org is a forum for the Safety Service Patrol community to share, learn and discuss best practices and lessons learned.

The FHWA Office of Transportation Operations shared a memorandum with FHWA Division Administrators on the value of Safety Service Patrol Partnerships highlighting a Partnership between State Farm and the Pennsylvania Turnpike. This 2008 Memorandum is available here:

Publications

For a listing of Traffic Incident Management publications, please visit the Office Of Operations' Publications Web page.

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