Incident Management Assistance Patrols: Assessment of Investment Benefits and Costs

Incident Management Assistance Patrols (IMAPs), classified as part of Intelligent Transportation Systems, help enable smooth traffic flow by aiding stranded motorists and assisting in incident clearance. Many major urban areas currently have patrols and most medium-sized urban areas are following suit. The success of IMAPs has resulted in frequent requests for service expansion. The decision of where to put the next patrol is becoming more difficult because an assessment of greatest need typically indicates that the high-priority areas already have the service and possible effects of the service are often indistinguishable on lower-priority facilities. In this report, the authors develop a new approach that helps determine the most beneficial locations in North Carolina for patrol deployment using expanded placement criteria. Analysis of three incident/crash indices was combined with spatial analysis, incident type distributions, average hourly freeway traffic volumes, and incident delay estimations to identify, evaluate, and compare IMAP expansion candidate facilities. Results of the research have been incorporated into a decision-support tool that allows easy planning and operational assessment of candidate sites by comparing performance values between sites, modeling the effect of IMAPs, and estimating their key potential benefits and costs. By using the tool, the decision-makers can quickly assess the needs of different facilities to make an informed, cost-effective decision as to where to implement the next service patrol.

• Record URL:
  https://connect.ncdot.gov/projects/research/pages/ProjDetails.aspx?ProjectID=2003-06
• Corporate Authors:

  University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

  Department of City and Regional Planning
  CB 3140, New East Hall
  Chapel Hill, NC  United States  27599-3140

  North Carolina State University, Raleigh

  Institute for Transportation Research and Education, Centennial Campus, 909 Capability Drive
  Raleigh, NC  United States  27695

  North Carolina Department of Transportation

  Research and Analysis Group, 1 South Wilmington Street
  Raleigh, NC  United States  27601

  Federal Highway Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Authors:
  • Khattak, Asad J
  • Rouphail, Nagui
• Publication Date: 2005-1

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Edition: Final Report
• Features: Appendices; Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 105p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Benefits; Cost effectiveness; Costs; Decision making; Decision support systems; Freeway service patrols; Incident management; Location; Needs assessment; Performance
• Uncontrolled Terms: Incident response
• Subject Areas: Finance; Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Safety and Human Factors; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01003777
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: North Carolina Department of Transportation
• Report/Paper Numbers: FHWA/NC/2005-02, NCDOT 2003-06
• Files: TRIS, USDOT, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Sep 16 2005 4:43PM