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Traffic Incident Management Training Post-Course Assessment Tool Final Evaluation Report

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) National Highway Institute offers the National Traffic Incident Management (TIM) Responder Training Course. The course provides first responders with a shared understanding of the requirements for the safe, quick clearance of traffic incident scenes; prompt, reliable and open communication; and motorist and responder safeguards.

The FHWA Office of Operations sponsored the TIM Responder Training Program Post-Course Assessment Tool which provides FHWA, State, and local agencies responsible for TIM operations, the ability to assess student learning and the impacts TIM training has on operations.

This final evaluation report provides an analysis of the data entered into the tool by course participants and their respective supervisors, agency administrators and/or senior management from the date of inception through August 15, 2017 (when the data for the last quarterly report was exported from the tool). As described in this report, the data captured in the tool demonstrates a clear return-on-investment from the TIM training.

The participants in the training have consistently rated their training experience as positive since the inception of the tool. High marks are given to the trainers in the train-the-trainer (TtT) course and to the instructors in the responder course. Among TtT course participants, the instructors received an average 98.6 percent positive rating across the six quarterly reports. Among responder course participants, the trainers received an average 96.4 percent positive ratings across the six quarterly reports.

Post-training impacts also received high scores from both responders and their respective supervisors, agency administrators and senior management. Among responders and their supervisors, there was consistent agreement that this training has resulted in increased levels of safety when working incident scenes with an average positive rating of 78.0 percent among responders and 77.0 percent among supervisors. Similarly, responders (85.3%) and their supervisors (72.6%) concurred that the training has increased awareness of and efforts to minimize secondary crashes at traffic incident scenes.

One critical measure of success of the training is course participant perception of how the training links the responder and motorist safety element of TIM and how quick clearance promotes safety. TtT course participants consistently rated that aspect of the training high, with an average of 99.4 percent positive rating. Among responder course participants, a similar average rating of 94.5 percent positive was received across the six quarterly reports.

Very positive impacts of the training were consistently reported by agency administrators and senior management.

  • On average, 97.5 percent reported that overall safety at traffic incidents has been improved as a result of personnel attending the TIM Responder training.
  • On average, 95.0 percent reported that overall agency operations have been improved as a result of personnel attending the TIM Responder training.
  • On average, 91.3 percent reported that coordination among different agencies at traffic incident scenes has improved since the TIM Responder training.
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