Benchmarking Traffic Incident Management in Australia: Part 1

To identify potential innovative practices that may be suitable for wider application, as well as provide a benchmark for ongoing improvement, a review of current traffic incident management (TIM) practices in major urban regions across Australia was undertaken in 2005-6. The review covered current traffic incident management practices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.

The assessment, modeled on the self-assessment approach taken by the US Federal Highways Administration approach, covered program and institutional issues (strategy and programs, resourcing, performance measurement, institutional arrangements), operational issues (procedures for major incidents, responder and motorist safety, response and clearance policies and procedures) and communication and technology issues (integrated inter-agency communications, transport management systems & traveller information).

A summary of the results show the highest assessments were recorded in Sydney and Melbourne, which are also the cities with the highest levels of traffic, congestion and incidents.The highest rating was for operational aspects, which were significantly higher than communication and technology or program and institutional issues.

Program and Institutional Strengths
TIM is a key or emerging priority in most agencies surveyed, formal interagency agreements on roles, operational and administrative procedures and policies are in place in a number of jurisdictions and cooperation is facilitated in some jurisdictions by legislation.

Handling TIM for special events is well established with high profile special events, such as the Sydney Olympics in 2000 and Commonwealth Games in 2006 in Melbourne, providing a catalyst.

Private toll roads in Sydney and Melbourne are required by their concession agreements to provide incident response services, nevertheless TIM is considered a core business activity as it provides a competitive advantage to attract patronage.

Program and Institutional Challenges
Funding issues raise a major obstacle to effective TIM in most jurisdictions.

Formal strategic and action plans and detailed action plans are rare and inter-agency strategies non-existent.

The number of stakeholders involved in planning, policy and operational is limited to a few key responders, usually the state road and traffic and police agencies.

Few TIM performance measures and targets have been formally established and are being tracked.

More on operational, communication and technology issues in Part 2 & 3. Download Austroads Report AP-297/07 Review of Current Traffic Incident Management Practices.