No one likes traffic congestion. It’s frustrating, expensive and time consuming. As our population grows and construction costs increase, TDOT is looking at ways to address traffic congestion without resorting to major road work. Studies have shown that 60% of traffic congestion is caused by non-recurring incidents like traffic crashes, stalled vehicles, maintenance work, or highly attended events, such as football games. Effective handling of these occurrences is known as incident management and it is extremely important to TDOT.

Our goal at TDOT is to keep Tennessee in Motion. We work to remove these incidents as quickly as possible so that traffic flow can return to normal and to avoid secondary accidents. TDOT’s SmartWay system helps us accomplish this. The SmartWay system utilizes HELP freeway service patrols in the four major cities to help clear incidents, along with traffic cameras and overhead dynamic message boards to keep motorists informed. But incident management is not solely the responsibility of TDOT. In most cases it is a multi-agency effort and the different agencies often have different responsibilities.

The challenge is to get all the emergency responders working together smoothly and efficiently while successfully accomplishing their respective tasks. To achieve this, four Incident Management Task Forces, composed of emergency responders from multiple agencies, meet twice a month twice a month at TDOT facilities in the four major urban areas.

The goal of the four task forces is cooperation, coordination and communication among the many emergency response agencies. Members of state and local law enforcement, municipal officials, city and county traffic engineers, tow truck operators, traffic reporters and others meet with TDOT personnel to discuss best practices in incident management. The groups look at issues and challenges and offer diverse perspectives and concerns.

The Task Force meetings have been so successful in the four larger cities that we are now expanding them to other areas. Currently, an Incident Management Task Force is meeting in Jackson and task forces are being established in Johnson City and Moore County.

For more information on incident management, please visit our website at www.tn.gov/tdot/incident/default.htm. You may also contact Frank Horne, Director of the Office of Incident Management, at Frank.C.Horne@state.tn.us or 615.350.3306