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Incident Scene Surveying Equipment
June 2007
Introduction
Occasionally, an incident will occur on the Highways Agency’s network that can have a significant impact upon traffic flow, with the potential for adverse effects to other road links surrounding the network. It can take several hours to clear a serious road incident due to the number and complexity of actions involved. Police are required to gather evidence from the scene, casualties must be safely removed and contractors must make relevant repairs to any damaged network infrastructure.
One of the key Highways Agency’s objectives is to re-open closed lanes as quickly as practicable in order to reduce congestion and improve reliability on the network and through the TIM Programme is working closely with the police to achieve this .
Requirements of Police and the Highways Agency at Incident Scenes
Police – One of the most important activities in the field of Road Policing occurs when there is a fatal or life threatening road traffic collision on the network. In such instances, the Police are required to investigate the circumstances to the highest possible standard. The investigation process has to be followed thoroughly to ensure their legal obligations are met, and that all evidence is effectively gathered for any due criminal process that could follow. An important aspect to be borne in mind is the limited opportunity available to the Police to gather evidence from the scene, this being principally limited to the time immediately following the closure of the road for the incident. It is important that evidence is not lost due to the carriageway being reopened too early.
Highways Agency - One of the major objectives of the Highways Agency is to minimise incident related congestion incurred by road users on the strategic road network, ensuring safe, reliable journeys.
Background
In 2006, the Highways Agency commissioned a research project to study one aspect of collision investigation; incident scene surveying equipment. The project investigated whether the use of new equipment types could assist the Police to reduce the amount of time they require at an incident scene to gather the data they are legally obliged to collect.
What is Incident Scene Surveying Equipment?
Incident scene surveying equipment is currently used during collision investigations to collect comprehensive surveys of the scene, which can then be effectively used in all legal hearings, from Coroners and Criminal Courts to Civil Litigation Hearings.
The Police commonly use a system called “Total Station”. This is a modern electronic version of a surveying instrument mounted on a theodolite1, which accurately measures angles between points, as well as this the latest total stations have built-in laser distance measurement systems too. A single operator can set up the total station, then investigate the site holding a target, which the total station will follow and record the data. Once the data is downloaded software is available that converts the data quickly into a scene diagram.
The research demonstrated that Global Positioning Equipment (GPS) enabled the Total Station equipment to be more time effective. One advantage of GPS enabled equipment is its ability to complete the survey without the need for extensive closures of the carriageway. Laser Scanners and Photogrammetry systems were also considered within the research project but these were found to offer less benefits when compared to GPS enabled equipment.
The project concluded that GPS enabled equipment demonstrated the most potential in satisfying the objectives of both the Police and the HA. This equipment can provide scene plans for use in police collision investigations, allowing the same accuracy and time efficiency savings. Through achieving this, the incident timeline can be reduced and subsequent delays to the road user minimised
The results of the research indicated that the use of GPS enabled Total Station Equipment, when compared to the standalone total station equipment commonly used by Police, has the potential to speed up survey times by approximately 5.6%.
Future Proposals
Progress and Programme
As one of the HA’s primary initiatives in ensuring safe, reliable journeys, the Highways Agency’s Traffic Incident Management (TIM) Programme is researching and identifying methods and opportunities to reduce incident scene clearance times. In order to achieve this objective the Highways Agency, funded the roll out of new, or upgraded systems to existing survey equipment to ten Police Forces in the last year.
These ten Police Forces now have access to the latest GPS enabled surveying equipment.
Detailed below is a quote from a Police force who has recently received their equipment and captures the key benefit in reducing incident durations.
“We are very pleased with the new equipment which has been provided by the Highways Agency as part of their congestion 'quick wins'.
We now have two Collision Investigation vehicles fully equipped with the latest Total Station and Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) surveying equipment. We have used the robotic Total Station in its various forms since 1993, which allows one person to survey a site much more quickly than used to be done with tape measures. However the GNSS is a further development in that it does not require line of sight between its component parts.
At the scene of serious crashes on the Highways Agency network we are able to set about recording data immediately without waiting for the scene to be cleared. We can work around other emergency services and recovery operators. This can result, as happened recently on one of our motorways, in the collision investigation causing no delay in the efforts to reopen the road as all the investigator's work was done without the necessity of the closure remaining after recovery work was completed.”
During the next year, the Highways Agency plan to offer assistance to the remaining Police Forces in England to upgrade or replace their existing survey kit with GPS enabled Total Station equipment. Completion of this project is due by 31st March 2008.
1 An optical instrument consisting of a rotating telescopic sight, used by a surveyor to measure horizontal and vertical angles.
