Traffic Incident Management – a Strategic Focus Inspector Peter Baird National Adviser: Policy and Legislation: Road Policing

Outline  An overview of Traffic Incident Management(TIM)- a Police view  Current challenges for Police in delivering TIM  The emergence of strategic trends in the transport sector and the impact on TIM - a Police perspective  Key considerations for Police going forward

Overview of TIM – a Police view  Traffic incident management (TIM) is defined as the systematic, planned and coordinated use of human, institutional, mechanical and technical resources to reduce the duration and impact of incidents, and improve the safety of motorists, crash victims and incident responders.  These resources are also used to increase the operating efficiency, safety, and mobility of the highway by:  systematically reducing the time to detect and verify an incident occurrence;  implementing the appropriate response;  safely clearing the incident;  managing the affected flow until full capacity is restored.

Police’s role in TIM  Provide emergency call centre/coordinates communications  Assume role of Incident Commander/supervise response actions  Secure incident scene/safeguarding property  Perform first responder duties  Assist responders in accessing the incident scenes  Control arrival and departure of incident responders  Conduct crash investigation  Perform traffic control  Establish emergency access routes  Ensure responder safety

The key objective of TIM  congestion relief and network efficiency  crash and secondary crash reductions  faster incident detection, verification, dispatch and response time  reduced mortality  increased responder safety  reduced traffic incident duration has proven the greatest contributor to the benefits of a traffic incident management program.

A US perspective… For every minute a freeway lane is blocked during peak use, an estimated 4 minutes of delay result after the incident is cleared, accounting for 4.2 billion hours of delay annually. Cost of congestion (billion) Cost of road crashes (billion) The cost of congestion and road crashes on US roads Source: US Department of National Transportation

Current trends within the transport system and the impact on traffic incident management

Vehicle kilometres travelled

Vehicle fleet composition

Road freight tonne-km growth

Pressure and change in the transport system over the next 20 years

Forecast growth in freight

Growth in aging population

Expected population growth

Placement of the population in 2031

What do these trends mean for TIM in the future?  Increased traffic volumes  increased number of road users and congestion on the network  Greater potential for traffic incidents to occur.  Increased traffic volumes  Potential to increase risk to the safety of motorists, crash victims and incident responders and an increase in the risk of secondary incidents occurring.  Increased number of vehicles congested in traffic related incidents  Increase in energy consumption and reduction in air quality (increase in vehicle emissions) through delays in traffic.  Aging population – increase in the number of older drivers  cognitive impairment and reduced driver ability  increase in minor crashes and traffic incidents.

What do these trends mean for TIM in the future? – Cont’d  Auckland and the golden triangle – Forecast for significant growth in population and VKT  potential for exponential increase in traffic incidents.  Greater complexity in managing sites with more vehicles travelling on a fixed capacity network (i.e. less time to respond with more traffic on the network).  Increased investigations by Police into road traffic incidents.

Challenges  Use of multiple operating systems and technologies across agencies can limit detection and the efficiency of responses.  Limited real-time information on the availability and location of responder agency resources.  Increasing pressure in the transport system will create the need to have better information to respond. Solution  Potential for traffic agencies to provide more assistance to police and emergency services through the use of intelligent transport systems (e.g. TOC with DCC).

Police’s role towards effective TIM  Ensure effective planning and governance with TIM responders to seek clear agreement on strategic trends, their impacts and responses.  Assess relevant policy and legislation to ensure fit with the strategic direction and environment for TIM in the future.  Look for opportunities to utilise technology to enable better integration and response both within Police and with key agencies.  Improve the quality of data being collected on traffic incidents for trend analysis and future planning.  Strategic assessments and planning for the occurrence of potential incidents – a preventative approach using intelligence.  Managing staff to demand – using intelligence to roster staff with the rise in network incidents.

Questions?