Traffic congestion has a daily impact on millions of motorists - both in terms of congestion and in terms of safety. To study congestion and develop countermeasures, the two general types of congestion must be addressed separately: recurring congestion, which occurs routinely at predictable times and locations, and non-recurring congestion, which occurs at random times and locations. This non-recurring congestion is typically caused by incidents (e.g., vehicle accidents, and breakdowns). It has been estimated that more than 60 per cent of all urban traffic congestion in the United States is a result of traffic incidents and 20 per cent of incidents are resulting from previous incidents. Consequently, the development of Incident Management programs has become an important component of traffic safety and operations management in the United States. Incident Management is a systematic and co-ordinated program to detect and remove incidents and restore capacity as safely and as quickly as possible. The goal of Incident Management programs is to minimise the impact of incidents on traffic flow and thus reduce congestion and improve safety. There are many Incident Management programs throughout the United States and they vary dramatically in scope, complexity, and cost. The purpose of this paper is review the characteristics of the various Incident Management programs that have been implemented in the U.S. and report on lessons learned from our experiences. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting