Aggressive Driving: Appendix 9
Incident Management Self-Assessment
By Arland [Ted] Smith and John O'Laughlin
PB Farradyne Inc
Incident Management (IM) programs throughout the country have a variety of approaches to solving issues. There are excellent methods being used in urban as well as rural areas to reduce the impacts that incidents have on roadways. Each state and area has to deal with political and institutional issues that will undoubtedly impact what and how you implement procedures. Those influences are everywhere and will determine what programs do and who does them.
This document contains a series of questions about the aspects of incident management that are part of a comprehensive program. Hopefully, they will allow you to simply answer Yes or No to allow you to make an assessment of how you are doing compared to others.
Please take a few minutes to answer the questions and then see what percentage you have answered in a positive manner.
|
SERVICE PATROLS |
|
Do you have a service patrol program? |
Yes |
No |
|
Does it operate at least 12 hours per day? |
Yes |
No |
|
Can the operators communicate by radio with the police? |
Yes |
No |
|
Are the patrols dispatched to all blocking accidents to assist the police? |
Yes |
No |
|
Are they equipped with traffic control devices including arrow boards? |
Yes |
No |
|
Are they dispatched to clear blocking debris? |
Yes |
No |
|
Are they scheduled for special events? |
Yes |
No |
|
Do they check and tag abandoned vehicles? |
Yes |
No |
|
24 HOUR DOT INCIDENT RESPONSE |
|
Do you have a 24 hour response program? |
Yes |
No |
|
Is the program statewide? |
Yes |
No |
|
Do the responders take home trucks? |
Yes |
No |
|
Are trucks equipped with arrow boards and other traffic control equipment? |
Yes |
No |
|
Are they equipped with pagers and cellular telephones? |
Yes |
No |
|
Do they have direct radio communications with the police? |
Yes |
No |
|
Do they represent DOT in unified command situations? |
Yes |
No |
|
INTERAGENCY ACTIVITIES |
|
Do you have published interagency agreements for incident management issues? |
Yes |
No |
|
Do you have regular meetings on incident management issues? |
Yes |
No |
|
Do you do joint training for roadway response procedures? |
Yes |
No |
|
Is DOT a regular participant in disaster or emergency drills? |
Yes |
No |
|
Is there a written guideline for response criteria? |
Yes |
No |
|
Are there partnerships in place with the media to share information? |
Yes |
No |
|
Do you have an incident management public education program (steer it clear it, etc.?) |
Yes |
No |
|
Have you trained all appropriate agency personnel on these initiatives? |
Yes |
No |
|
CLEARANCE OF INCIDENTS |
|
Do you have and actively use a quick clearance policy? |
Yes |
No |
|
Have you set criteria for clearance times? |
Yes |
No |
|
Do the police have a criteria for completing investigations in a timely manner? |
Yes |
No |
|
Does DOT play an active on scene roll in clearing major accidents? |
Yes |
No |
|
Do they provide professional traffic control services at serious incident scenes? |
Yes |
No |
|
Does DOT have a response package of equipment to assist with truck wreck clearance? |
Yes |
No |
|
Has DOT provided assistance such as total stations to police to speed up clearance? |
Yes |
No |
|
Do you have a separate class of large tows (40 or more tons) for up-righting trucks? |
Yes |
No |
|
Do you regularly evaluate closures to determine ways to improve performance? |
Yes |
No |
|
Have you evaluated how ITS applications have improved IM performance? |
Yes |
No |
|
Have you evaluated the deployment of equipment? (arrow boards, VMS, etc.) |
Yes |
No |
|
INCIDENT MANAGEMENT FOR CONSTRUCTON ZONES |
|
Is incident response considered in early project design stages? |
Yes |
No |
|
Are response agencies involved in these early stages? |
Yes |
No |
|
Is a service patrol considered for larger projects? |
Yes |
No |
|
Is temporary detection and verification technology used for IM? |
Yes |
No |
|
If video is used can it be accessed by emergency agencies? |
Yes |
No |
|
Are variable message boards used? |
Yes |
No |
|
Can they be changed quickly 24 hours per day? |
Yes |
No |
|
Are police used in the construction zones for traffic control? |
Yes |
No |
|
Do they have definitive duties in writing? |
Yes |
No |
|
Are temporary access or turn around routes considered in the plan? |
Yes |
No |
|
Are response agencies provided with on-call information for contractors? |
Yes |
No |
|
Are entire construction zones tow away zones? |
Yes |
No |
|
Are alternate landing zones for patient airlift designated? |
Yes |
No |
|
Does the contract contain the ability to use the construction equipment to help with clearance? |
Yes |
No |
|
Has the construction been scheduled to allow for an open shoulder on at least one side of the barrier? |
Yes |
No |
|
Have temporary accident investigation sites been identified? |
Yes |
No |
|
Have the police agreed to use them? |
Yes |
No |
|
AGENCY LEADERSHIP |
|
Have agency leaders published a set of IM guidelines? |
Yes |
No |
|
Have they published interagency agreements? |
Yes |
No |
|
Do employees know where they stand on IM issues? |
Yes |
No |
|
Do managers set a positive environment for improvements? |
Yes |
No |
|
Does senior management ever participate in any IM activities? |
Yes |
No |
This is a self assessment, so, don't be concerned about anyone else seeing it. If your responses are negative for over 25% of the questions, then your program may need further enhancement.
Total 56 items from: http://www.ops.fhwa.dot.gov/Travel/IncidentMgmt/IncMgtSA.htm, August 2002.
|