Analysis of Benefits of an Expansion to UDOT’s Incident Management Program

In 2018 the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) funded a study in which data were collected to evaluate performance measures for UDOT’s Incident Management Team (IMT) program. Afterwards, UDOT received funding to expand the size of the program. Additionally, TransSuite, a data source used by the UDOT Traffic Operations Center to log incident-related data, was reconfigured to provide a higher quantity of performance measure data. This study made use of the new data source to collect performance measure data of the expanded program and measure the impacts of the IMT program expansion. Using a reanalyzed 2018 dataset and a new 2020 dataset, a comparison of performance measures was made. Performance measures were calculated for IMT responders at 320 incidents in 2018 and 289 incidents in 2020. Additionally, data regarding the affected volume, the excess travel time, and the excess user cost associated with incident congestion were gathered. In 2018 and 2020, 188 and 144 incidents were respectively analyzed for these user impacts. Statistical analyses were conducted to compare IMT performance between the two years and to determine relationships between performance measures and user impacts. The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic affected traffic volumes during this study, and statistical analyses were adjusted to account for volume differences between the two years. Results indicated that the expansion of the IMT program has allowed UDOT to respond faster to incidents, and respond to a larger quantity of incidents, even with extended coverage. Performance of the expanded IMT program has had significant effects in reducing incident-related congestion and its costs.

• Record URL:
  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Zw_1BxsjV7vjmiDmfAsDi3vWmomve0r6/view
• Record URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/60278
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Sponsoring Agency Code UT19.305.
• Corporate Authors:

  Brigham Young University

  Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
  Provo, UT  United States  84602

  Utah Department of Transportation

  4501 South 2700 West
  Salt Lake City, UT  United States  84114-8410

  Federal Highway Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Authors:
  • Schultz, Grant G
  • Saito, Mitsuru
  • Bennett, Logan S
  • Hyer, Joel
  • Eggett, Dennis L
• Publication Date: 2021-8

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Edition: Final Report
• Features: Appendices; Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 152p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Benefits; COVID-19; Highway safety; Incident management; Performance measurement
• Identifier Terms: Utah Department of Transportation
• Geographic Terms: Utah
• Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01781839
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: UT-21.13, R0402346
• Contract Numbers: 20-8507
• Files: NTL, TRIS, ATRI, USDOT, STATEDOT
• Created Date: Sep 20 2021 2:52PM