Traffic Incident Response: Practices in Europe

FHWA-PL-06-002

Effective response to traffic incidents can enhance safety and mobility for both road users and responders. The Federal Highway Administration, American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, and National Cooperative Highway Research Program sponsored a scanning study of traffic incident response practices, procedures, and technologies in England, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden.

During its study, the scan team observed several common attributes among the organizations in each country involved with incident response. They include a national authority with responsibility for coordinating incident response, national transportation agencies with traffic patrols that respond to incidents, clear jurisdictional responsibility for the police authority responding to incidents in an area, coordinated training for all major incident responders, and national auto clubs that provide roadside repair and towing services.

The team developed 25 recommendations for potential implementation in the United States. They include adopting a national goal for incident response, developing national guidance on incident response performance measures, and establishing Transportation Operations Centers of Excellence for incident response research. The recommendations are aligned with the focus areas of the National Traffic Incident Management Coalition, which plans to participate in implementing the team's recommendations.

• HTML Version
• PDF Version (7.3 mb)