Highways Agency

• Traffic Incident Management Bulletin

December 2007

We thought we would take this opportunity to summarise some of the lessons learnt and good practice in incident management that have been highlighted in the TIM Bulletin this year. 2007 has seen some significant achievements in improving the way incidents are managed on the Highways Agency’s network. This is a summary of the headline achievements which have been made possible by the efforts of all of you.

Firstly a few facts and figures to put it all in context.

• The National Incident Liaison Officer has reported 1,812 Critical incidents and 2,696 other incidents.
• The Traffic Officer Service has managed an average of 1000 incidents a day.
• 2007 was the first year where the Traffic Officers were fully deployed across the whole motorway network in England.
• There have been 172 new items of either learning or good practice on the Traffic Operations Actions Spreadsheet. 40% of these have since been closed out on TOAS.

So what has the Highways Agency TIM Team been up to?

TIM Bulletin

The TIM Bulletin is the primary mechanism for disseminating lessons learnt to the Highway incident management community. Throughout 2007 readership has been steadily increasing and now the bulletin is read by over 600 people a month with over 500 subscribers from all the different organisations that are involved in incident management on the Highways Agency’s network. In excess of 60 articles have been published this year not including the December 2007 Bulletin.

Airwave for Service Providers

This is a complex project with a range of issues to overcome. However, it is making progress due to the support given by the maintenance community through the Operational Effectiveness Working Group. Airwave for Service Providers will be the subject of a full article in the new year.

Fresnel lenses

This is the subject of an article this month. The TIM team has provided over 40,000 lenses to ports to reduce the number of sideswipe incidents involving foreign left hand drive large goods vehicles.

Scene screen trials

This project has been the subject of two articles in 2007 (April and September) with good results being gained from the trial. It is hoped that the final results will be available by February 2008.

Collision investigation equipment

In June 2007 the Bulletin detailed this project. This is now reaching its latter stages with the order in place for the equipment. It is anticipated that delivery to the various police forces will be completed in January 2008. The 10 Police Forces that got new collision investigation equipment last year have demonstrated that surveying incident scenes is on average 37 minutes quicker than with their old equipment.

Diversion Routes

One of the largest projects the TIM team is managing is the delivery of the 1928 junction to junction diversion routes. The project was detailed in the January 2007 Bulletin and updated in August. To date approximately 351 routes are complete, and these routes have been used on 92 occasions since April this year.

Standard Incident Management Framework & Guidance (SIMF & SIMG)

The TIM team is not just about hard solutions. SIMG and SIMF provide the framework for incident management in the Highways Agency.

Recovery DVD

As described in the November 2007 bulletin, the TIM team has produced an educational DVD to ensure the correct information is provided to the vehicle recovery agents.

Recovery Aide memoir

The recovery aide memoir sets out the key information that vehicle recovery agents require to expedite removal of vehicles. Details can be found in the August 2007 bulletin.

Immediate dispatch of ISU

Coupled to the Highways Agency enhancing its Incident Support Unit (ISU) provision has been the requirement for ISUs to be dispatched immediately as opposed to waiting until the first Traffic Officer was on scene. This again is being monitored to ensure it is reducing incident clearance times as expected.

Attendance at debriefs

In an attempt to promote learning at debriefs the TIM team is attending as many cold incident debriefs as possible. It has also produced a good practice guide which can be found in the October 2007 Bulletin.

Exercise Encore

This was featured last month with an article highlighting the benefits that have come out of this live situation exercise delivered by the Traffic Learning Centre.

TIM Partnership Group

This group is a key liaison point between the Highways Agency and the Police. In time this will be extended to other incident responders. Currently still under development but its profile and impact on TIM is likely to increase in the near future.

Driver Location Signs

The progress of the Driver Location Signs project has been featured on a number of occasions in the Bulletin during the past year. During the period, April 2007 to March 2008, approximately 6,300 signs will have been installed on the network through both the TIM Programme and Highways Agency's Area Teams. With the project gathering pace with more signs across the network, it has received positive feedback from the Ambulance Service and others.

In addition the team has also been involved with a wide range of other projects such as:

• Highways Agency Traffic Radio
• National Vehicle Recovery Project
• Severe Weather Exercises

The Future

In 2008 the TIM Team will continue to search out and promote good practice. Work will also continue on a wide range of projects, many of which are mentioned above. One thing that is certain is that the TIM Bulletin will continue to be the primary conduit of good practice, lessons learned and new ideas.

Derek Turner, Highways Agency Traffic Operations Director stated:

"Dealing with congestion caused by incidents is fundamental to making journeys on the strategic road network more reliable.  Collecting lessons learned through the cold incident debrief process and disseminating good practice  through the TIM Bulletin plays a vital role in reducing the amount of time that roads are closed following an incident."

And finally…

Thank you from all of us at the TIM Team for all your support and assistance over the past 12 months.

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.