2019 Traffic Incident Management Capability Maturity Self-Assessment National Analysis Report
Chapter 4. Tactical
The 22 questions in the Tactical section are focused on the following three areas:
- Traffic Incident Management (TIM) Laws.
- Policies and Procedures for Incident Response and Clearance.
- Responder and Motorist Safety.
The Tactical section continues as the highest scoring of the three Traffic Incident Management Capability Maturity Self-Assessment (TIM CM SA) sections, achieving an overall score of 77.5 percent. Three of the five highest scoring questions on the 2019 TIM CM SA are in the Tactical section, as part of the Policies and Procedures subsection (table 9).
Table 9. Traffic incident management policies and procedures – highest scoring in 2019.
| Question |
2019 Average Score |
Percent of TIM CM SA Scoring 3 or Higher |
| 44. Is there a procedure in place for removal of abandoned vehicles? |
3.45 |
83.0 |
| 40. Does at least one responding agency have the authority to override the decision to utilize the responsible party's Hazmat contractor and call in other resources? |
3.40 |
91.5 |
| 36. Do towing and recovery procedures/rotation list policies deploy resources based on type/severity of incident? |
3.33 |
89.4 |
TIM CM SA = Traffic Incident Management Capability Maturity Self-Assessment.
High scores in this area can be attributed, in part, to the National TIM Responder Training that emphasizes the need for policies and procedures that provide for responder and motorist safety and quick clearance. Given the increasing numbers of responders trained in the course curricula, it is not surprising that there are now three questions in the Policies and Procedures subsection that have 90 percent or more of the programs scoring questions 3 or higher as shown in table 10.
Table 10. Traffic incident management policies and procedures – 90 percent or more scoring each question 3 or higher.
| Question |
2019 Average Score |
Percent of TIM CM SA Scoring 3 or Higher |
| 34. Do TIM responders routinely utilize the Incident Command System (ICS), specifically Unified Command (UC), while on scene? |
3.24 |
90.4 |
| 39. Is there a policy in place that clearly identifies reportable types and quantities, and appropriate Hazmat response? |
3.30 |
90.4 |
| 40. Does at least one responding agency have the authority to override the decision to utilize the responsible party's Hazmat contractor and call in other resources? |
3.40 |
91.5 |
Two questions in the TIM CM SA query respondents on Safety Service Patrols (questions 32 and 33). The first asks about the existence of a Safety Service Patrol and the second asks respondents to score the Safety Service Patrol's level of coverage.
Over 80 percent of respondents scored both questions 3 or 4 (with 41.5 percent scoring both questions 4), meaning a large number of Safety Service Patrols across the country range from mid-level to full-functionality.
Services provided by these Safety Service Patrols include motorist assistance, incident response and clearance, emergency traffic control, and scene management. Furthermore, these Safety Service Patrols range from medium-sized fleets providing service on most major roadways to fleets large enough to provide ample coverage on all major roadways. For those that provided operating hours for their programs, the majority operate during morning and afternoon peak periods Monday through Friday, although some operate 24/7 on a year-round basis.
Seventy-eight percent of the 2019 TIM CM SA respondents provided information on levels of coverage, with the combined Safety Service Patrol coverage extending over 4,600 centerline miles and 13,468 lane miles (some programs reported centerline, others lane miles). The median centerline miles coverage reported by 2019 TIM CM SA respondents was 131 miles and the median lane miles coverage was 290 miles.
The continued high scores in the Tactical section of the TIM CM SA indicate that TIM programs have successfully institutionalized Driver Removal and Authority Removal laws, policies and procedures for incident response and clearance and have put into place the processes necessary for responder and motorist safety. With initially high Baseline scores, the Tactical questions have only experienced a combined 20.0 percent increase over Baseline, and the average percentage of programs scoring these questions a 3 or higher is 79.0 percent.
However, two questions in the Tactical section (#42 and #44) remain below their Baseline, and Question 42 on procedures for removal of the deceased prior to arrival of the Medical Examiner is four percent below Baseline and realized a 12.3 percent decrease from the average score in 2018. Among locations that submitted a TIM CM SA in 2018 and 2019, the average score is up 4.2 percent, so this year-over-year decrease is the result of high-scoring locations that submitted in 2018 but not in 2019, and the addition of some new locations in 2019 with lower scores on Question 42. Nonetheless, with one of the lower average scores overall on the 2019 TIM CM SA, procedures for removal of the deceased prior to the arrival of the Medical Examiner should be a continued focus area for TIM training and best practices development.
Table 11 lists alphabetically the TIM programs that achieved the highest scores in the Tactical section.
Table 11. Highest scoring – Tactical.
| Traffic Incident Management (TIM) Program |
| Atlanta, GA |
| Cincinnati, OH |
| Miami – Dade, FL |
| Milwaukee, WI |
| San Francisco, CA |
| Seattle, WA |
| Tucson, AZ |
