Incident management (IM) is defined as the implementation of a systematic, planned and coordinated set of responsive actions and resources to prevent accidents in potentially dangerous situations and to handle incidents safely and quickly. It proceeds through a cycle of several phases: from incident detection to restoration of normal traffic conditions, including the use of immediate and advance notice of possible dangers or problems, i.e. warnings, in order to prevent accidents.
Incident warning and management have two main goals:
ITS service radar
ITS service key words
Definitions:
Three aspects by order of priority:
Safety
Whenever an incident occurs, it also has an effect on the safety of people in the vicinity of the incident. Victims of the primary incident, IM responders and road users (upstream of the incident and on the other side of the road) are the most important risk groups exposed to additional risks, i.e. secondary incidents. Therefore, IM must create the safest possible workplace at the scene of the incident to ensure the safety of IM responders, those involved in the incident and road users travelling past the incident scene. Measures must be taken to protect all involved from hazards at the incident scene, e.g., smoke and hazardous substances.
Traffic flow
IM must ensure that the traffic flow in the vicinity of the incident is safe and optimal. If necessary and possible, traffic must be diverted via other routes to relieve the incident area and safeguard the mobility of traffic flow. In this aspect, the goal of IM is to reduce delays and increase reliability for the road user.
Control and repair of damage
IM must consider the consequences, including the economic cost incurred, of damage to the vehicles and their loads involved in incidents, as well as the repair of possible damage to the road (surface, road equipment [e.g. safety barrier] and civil engineering structures), considering economic costs. Traffic queues caused by incidents result in delays, disruption to public transport schedules, financial loss to freight operators and businesses and increased vehicle emissions due to traffic idling for extended periods of time. These are the reasons why incident management is considered such a high priority.
The ITS service Incident Management and Incident Warning is not comparable to traffic management services as described in the other ITS service descriptions. Together with the ITS service “Traffic management plan service for corridors and networks”, its nature is a management service which uses and applies other services. This is due to the nature of the IM process in which cooperation between IM responders including a clear description of the roles and responsibilities of the different IM responders plays an important role. Therefore, some requirements relate to the non-ITS-aspects of IM. They are meant to use ITS in a more efficient and more effective way.
Traffic Management services, in relation to IM, become more complex in situations where other ITS-services are involved like Dynamic Lane Management, Hard Shoulder Running, Variable Speed Limit and HGV Overtaking Ban. Extra steps in the IM process will be necessary. Traffic Management Services in the case of incidents also include actions, for e.g., diversion routes in the case of incidents with wide-scale impact on multiple regions.
Incident management is defined as the implementation of a systematic, planned and coordinated set of responsive actions and resources to prevent accidents in potentially dangerous situations and to handle an incident safely and quickly. It proceeds through a cycle of several stages: from incident detection to the restoration of normal traffic conditions, including the use of immediate and advance notice of possible dangers or problems, i.e. warnings, in order to prevent accidents.
To realize IM as a traffic management measure, the parties involved have to go through three phases in an iterative process.
In the process of incident management before, during and after an incident, the following functional requirements to be fulfilled by the IM-partners can be distinguished:
Functional requirements:
Interface requirements:
Incident management typically involves many different partners like the road authorities, road operators (public or private), the police, the fire brigade, ambulance services, recovery services and the media.
The cooperating parties jointly identify who should be responsible for what. They define a common approach with common goals and common priorities.
Organisational requirements:
There are a number of relevant laws, directives and guidelines, often defined at national level, that have to be considered and respected when an accident occurs and the responsive actions are activated. For example, removing damaged vehicles (incidents), stalled vehicles and lost cargo (spilled loads) from roads is based on laws in the private domain a result of a tort (wrongful act) committed against the road operator.
It is essential to take this legal framework into account in the organization and the cooperation of multiple partners.
A common look and feel concerns the road users´ expectations when they meet a situation where incident warning and management is required, like a breakdown or collision or traffic management measures activated to support IM.
Common look & feel requirements:
ITS-measures
Currently common icons at European level haven’t been defined; however, the following proposal is suggested.
It is up to the deploying road operator to ensure that physical signs are well and widely understood by the road users.
Non- ITS measures
Common Look & Feel advice:
The basis for incident warning, and consequently for its management, is the monitoring of real-time traffic conditions (including weather and road conditions) and the detection of an incident.
As stated in FR2, detection can be done both through both technology and by human force. If technology is used to detect incidents, the following technologies could be used on the TEN-T Roads:
There are, between the detection systems, those placed on or embedded in the road surface and those above the surface, sometimes recognised also as contactless systems.
As sensors for the detection of traffic data, a number of solutions or detectors may be applied of which the most commonly deployed technologies are:
It is important to clarify that the technical equipment such as sensors, cameras, VMSs, etc., are used both for incident detection and warning as well as for the daily management of the network.
Technical advice:
Information provision standards:
Table 38 gives the Level of Service recommendations for an Incident Warning and Management service. The background of this concept is descripted in chapter 2.6.
Table 38: Level of Service recommendation for Incident Warning and Management
Level of Service requirement
Table 39: Level of Service to Operating Environment mapping table (see also chapter 2.5.3 and ANNEX C)
[1] In case of a crash, an eCall-equipped car automatically calls the nearest emergency centre. Even if no passenger is able to speak, e.g. due to injuries, a ‚Minimum Set of Data‘ is sent, which includes the exact location of the crash site. Shortly after the accident, emergency services therefore know that there has been an accident, and where exactly, cutting emergency services response time.
