Incident and Emergency Response
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Incident and emergency response includes strategies, technologies, and processes used to manage and respond to unplanned roadway events impacting mobility and safety.
HOW IT WORKS
Traffic Incident Management, which includes incident and emergency response, aims to enhance the safety, mobility, and efficiency of the transportation network by mitigating the impacts of incidents through coordinated and timely detection, response, and clearance often using data and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) technologies (FHWA-OPS).
BENEFITS
Effective incident and emergency response reduces the duration and impacts of traffic incidents; improves the safety of motorists, crash victims, and emergency responders; and reduces the frequency of secondary crashes (FHWA-OPS). The implementation of ITS technologies can help improve incident response.
- Florida's Rapid Incident Clearance Program featuring connected vehicles yielded $5.78 in secondary crash savings and $1.20 in traffic delay savings for every dollar spent (2023-B01784).
- In Pennsylvania, 37 audible emergency preemption systems installed as part of a Regional Traffic Signal Program (RTSP) helped reduce emergency response time by 14 to 23 percent (2023-B01807).
- In Utah, the incident management team improved incident response time by over 12 percent after a program extension that enabled the use of both incident-related data and computer-aided dispatch logs (2022-B01659).
