EXPERIENCE IN HANDLING FREEWAY CORRIDOR INCIDENTS IN HOUSTON

The need to improve the operational efficiency and safety of urban streets and freeways is greater now than ever before. But at the same time urban areas are faced with an increasing problem of traffic congestion caused by capacity-reducing incidents. The incidents are serviced by many organizations in many ways, but few cities have an efficient and coordinated procedure to restore urban roadways to peak efficiency after an incident occurs. The Texas Highway Department, City of Houston, and the Texas Transportation Institute are working toward a solution of this problem. Current practices for the detection and removal of freeway incidents and the results of research studies on response times by police, effects of accidents on traffic operations, and the effectiveness of emergency call-box systems are reviewed. Recommendations are presented for the improvement of the total incident management system in Houston.

• Record URL:
  • http://onlinepubs.trb.org/Onlinepubs/sr/sr153/153-018.pdf
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/0360859X
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Presented at the 7th Summer Mtg. of TRB in cooperation with Florida DOT, Jacksonville, Fla., Aug. 5-7, 1974. Distribution, posting, or copying of this PDF is strictly prohibited without written permission of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences. Unless otherwise indicated, all materials in this PDF are copyrighted by the National Academy of Sciences. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board (TRB)

  Washington, DC   
• Authors:
  • McCasland, William R
• Conference:
  • 7th Summer Meeting of the Transportation Research Board
  • Location: Jacksonville Florida, United States
  • Date: 1974-8-5 to 1974-8-7
• Publication Date: 1975

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References;
• Pagination: pp 145-155
• Monograph Title: Better use of existing transportation facilities
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Board Special Report
  • Issue Number: 153
  • Publisher: Transportation Research Board
  • ISSN: 0360-859X

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Call boxes; Detection and identification; Detectors; Disasters and emergency operations; Emergency response time; Freeways; Hazards and emergency operations; Highway capacity; Improvements; Management; Reaction time; Recommendations; Traffic congestion; Traffic crashes; Traffic incidents
• Uncontrolled Terms: Incidents; Removal
• Geographic Terms: Houston (Texas)
• Old TRIS Terms: Call boxes; Freeway capacity; Freeway traffic accidents
• Subject Areas: Administration and Management; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Research; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00099508
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Nov 5 1975 12:00AM