Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Strategies that reduce congestion delays at incident locations involve reducing
detection times, reducing response times, and removing disabled and emergency
vehicles from the incident location as quickly as possible. In addition, the avail-
ability of adequate shoulders along freeways and major arterial roads can provide
refuge for disabled vehicles, and can minimize the number of lanes blocked.
The goal for transportation agencies
is to
minimize detection times, response times, and capacity restoration times. The initial
response time, for example, depends upon the location and coordination of
—
highway agencies in particular
—
re,
police, ambulance, and equipment services. The capacity restoration time depends
upon the degree of complexity of the incident (e.g., crash severity, simple vehicle
breakdown, major
flooding, and the capabilities of the response team. The incident
duration time depends on the duration of the blockage, the volume of traf
fl
c demand
(5 am or 5 pm?), the restored capacity of the impacted roadway, and its design
features
—
especially provision of shoulders that can accommodate disabled
vehicles.
The extent of congestion can also be reduced by providing real-time information
to drivers and/or preventing them from entering the congested roadways.
An critical requirement is having an institutional architecture and arrangements
in place that can implement these requirements [
4
]. Overlapping administrative
boundaries and jurisdictions often requires the cooperation among various agencies
and governments:
Responses to non-recurring events should be mainstream rather than ad hoc
Coordinated approaches
require that barriers
to institutional change be
overcome
Institutional change can be driven by experiences that expose the weakness of
existing institutional structures and by recon
guring the institutional framework
to better meet incident response requirements
c incident management should be a planned and coordinated process to
detect, respond to, and remove traf
Traf
c capacity as safely
and quickly as possible. This coordinated process involves a number of public and
private sector partners, including: Law Enforcement, Fire and Rescue, Emergency
Medical Services, Transportation, Public Service Communications, Emergency
Management, Towing and Recovery, Hazardous Materials Contractors, and Traf
c incidents and restore traf
c
Information Media.
Creating congestion management centers at strategic locations in urban areas can
provide for a reduced response time to incidents. This helps to reduce impact
duration, intensity, and extent.
Speci
c supply and demand strategies that can reduce incident delay are brie
fl
y
identi
ed below.
