United States Department of Transportation
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Evaluation of Incident Response Improvements for Statewide Application: Learning from the New Regional Traffic Management Center in Jacksonville, Florida
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2018-12-01
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[PDF-5.22 MB]
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Edition:Final Report; December 2016 – December 2018
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Abstract:Regional transportation management centers (RTMCs) are multimillion-dollar projects that serve as the hub of most freeway systems. A new RTMC in Jacksonville, FL, became operational in November 2015. This new facility replaces the old RTMC that was housed in the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) District 2 Urban Office building. The new facility co-locates multiple stakeholders under one roof. Although this strategy is expected to improve traffic incident management, its impact has not yet been quantified. As such, this research has two main goals: (a) evaluate the performance of the new RTMC in Jacksonville; and (b) quantify the impact of incidents on the operational and safety performance of the freeway network. The specific objectives were to (a) compare the performance of the new RTMC where multiple response agencies are physically co-located in the RTMC building with the performance of the old RTMC where most of the incident response agencies were housed at their respective agency locations; (b) estimate the delays caused by incidents on freeways and determine the factors affecting these delays; and (c) develop a reliable approach to identify secondary crashes (SCs) and determine the risk factors associated with SCs. The first goal was achieved by comparing the incident verification and response durations before and after the opening of the new RTMC where multiple response agencies are housed under one roof. In general, the new RTMC was found to improve the incident verification and incident response durations. The factors affecting the incident verification and response durations before and after co-location were also investigated using hazard-based models. The second goal of quantifying the impact of incidents on the performance of the freeway network was achieved by estimating incident impact durations and incident-related delays and identifying and analyzing SCs. Data-driven methodologies using realtime traffic data were developed to estimate the incident impact duration and the incident-related delays. Hazard-based models were developed to investigate factors affecting these performance measures. SCs were identified using a dynamic method which considers flexible spatiotemporal impact ranges of primary incidents (PIs). The results from this approach were compared with the traditional static method which identifies SCs based on fixed spatiotemporal thresholds of PIs. The risk factors associated with SCs were also investigated using the Bayesian random effect complementary log-log model. This research provides an in-depth understanding of the impact of incidents on traffic flow characteristics such as speed, density, and volume. The study results help develop incident management procedures for specific incidents that have a higher likelihood of adversely impacting traffic operations and safety along the freeways. Enhancements to traffic incident management (TIM) strategies and timely dissemination of incident information to the traffic upstream of the incident have the potential to reduce incident-related delays and the likelihood of SCs.
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