Highways Agency

• Traffic Incident Management Bulletin

August 2007

Introduction

This article highlights that although all areas of incident management are important, the preparation of a plan is not the end of preparing for the management of incidents. Exercises play an important role in ensuring that when required the plan is effective and efficient.

Incident Management Lifecycle

Successful incident management does not occur by accident, over many years and through continued evolving experience, an 'incident management lifecycle' has developed, providing a framework for a consistent approach to incident management and providing the key elements of:

• understanding the responder's responsibilities
• development of a strategic approach
• development and implementation of a consistent response (contingency plans)
• exercising, maintaining and reviewing

Understanding an organisation's role and responsibilities within the area of incident management is the first step towards the development of robust and effective response plans. These could be for the basic day to day responses or for the efficient management of more significant incidents that fall within the critical or major categories.

Once the roles and responsibilities are clearly defined, each organisation will need to develop an incident management strategy. This will provide the foundations to ensure that all incidents are managed effectively and consistently to meet the strategic goals of the organisation.

The development of consistent and robust response plans for all incidents is the next key stage.  This may be the implementation of incident management, emergency or contingency plans.

The final stage of the lifecycle is exercising, maintenance and review. Exercising will not only assess the effectiveness of the plan but also the ability of the staff to understand and implement procedures, all within a safe environment. The reviewing and maintenance elements are essential to ensure that the plans and process are suitable to meet the ever changing needs of the Highways Agency's network.

Exercising

Exercising of all plans is an essential element of the 'Incident Management Lifecycle', as you only know that a plan may work when it is tested. The testing of plans on live incidents is not ideal, as there is a likelihood of failure or issues arising, therefore simulations (exercises) are a useful tool due to the safe environment for evaluation.

The most obvious example is a fire evacuation plan as every workplace has one and the workforce is aware of it and there is a legal requirement to carry out fire drills. This is a basic exercise of the fire evacuation plan and if the plan does not work as intended then changes can be made without putting life at risk.

The British Standards Institute has recently published BS 25999 Business Continuity Management. This uses a six step model to successful business continuity planning. Step five is a recommendation to exercise the plans. This highlights that exercises are good practice for successful response to unplanned events. A useful resource relating to this can be found on the UK Resilience website.

There is also a less tangible side to exercising as running an exercise will test the working relationships between individuals and/or organisations. The exercises provide an opportunity to forge new relationships and to learn from one another. It allows everyone to understand each others roles and responsibilities and find familiarity. Incident response is always a team effort and teamwork requires effort. If the relationships are already in place it will simplify matters if there is a difference of opinion in a live situation.

An exercise is also an opportunity to learn as the plan may work well in theory but an exercise is likely to highlight areas for further improvement. These should be fed back into the plan updating process to continually improve their preparedness. The Army use the phrase, "Train hard, fight easy!"

What counts as an exercise?

Any testing of a plan in a safe environment is an exercise. These can range from a short duration desktop test of a procedure up to a simulated, full scale, on scene multi-agency response. As mentioned above taking 30 minutes to carry out a fire drill is an exercise.

The UK Resilience website states that exercises have three main purposes:

• to validate plans (validation)
• to develop staff competencies and give them practice in carrying out their roles in the plans (training)
• to test well-established procedures (testing)

The most common types of exercise are:

• discussion-based ‘talk-through’ of a scenario often used to develop awareness and train staff. The Army call this a Tactical Exercise Without Troops (TEWT)
• table-top based on a realistic scenario typically used to validate plans and locate weaknesses
• live rehearsal of an incident used to test arrangements, validate plans and provide staff with experience of what it could be like in a real life scenario

It is key to an exercise’s success to ensure a post-exercise debrief is held to certify that all learning points have been captured and therefore disseminated. These actions, learning points or good practice should all be placed on the Traffic Operations Actions Spreadsheet (TOAS). Find out more about TOAS.

What type of plan is tested?

Plans that should be tested range from operational procedures used everyday to contingency plans for the more significant incidents that fall in to the Highways Agency's nationally agreed incident criteria.

The critical and major incident criteria are periodically updated but the current edition can be found within Highways Agency Contingency Plans. The edition current at the time of publication can be found in the June 2007 edition of the TIM Bulletin. In addition the Highways Agency has the below incident objectives to be met when managing any incident:

Incident Objectives

• Saving and protecting life
• Relieving suffering
• Protecting property
• Providing the public with timely information
• Containing the emergency – limiting its spread
• Maintaining critical services
• Maintaining normal services at an appropriate level
• Protecting the health and safety of personnel
• Safeguarding the environment
• Promoting self help and recovery
• Restoring normality as soon as possible
• Facilitating investigations and inquiries
• Evaluating the response and identifying the lessons to be learned

How do I know what exercises are going on?

Generally attendance at exercises is by invitation but it is useful to know what is going on in the area. The Highways Agency Network Access and Resilience (NAR) Teams produce a 'forward look'. This lists all the major events and work on the Highways Agency's network and also the exercises being carried out in the area.

In addition most regions are served by a Local Resilience Forum (LRF) whose websites often lists the major exercises planned in their region. The websites can often be a useful source of general information about resilience in the local area so are worth an internet search to find them.

The Government Office for the region will normally have a calendar containing the events in their region although these tend to be large scale exercises.

Has this article been worthwhile reading? Why not take a moment to send us your comments, thoughts or questions. Please e-mail TIMbulletin@highways.gsi.gov.uk.