Sharing Information between Public Safety and Transportation Agencies for Traffic Incident Management (2004)

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E-1 APPENDIX E PHOENIX, ARIZONA, CASE STUDY 1 INTRODUCTION This section details the various roles and responsibilities of agencies responsible for traffic incident management (TIM) activities in the Phoenix metropolitan area, as well as the insti- tutional framework that supports these activities. 1.1 Institutional Framework The Phoenix metropolitan area was selected in 1997 as one of four federally funded national metropolitan model deploy- ment initiatives (MMDIs) that focused on aggressive deploy- ment of regionwide intelligent transportation systems (ITS).1 Phoenix’s MMDI efforts are collectively referred to as AZTech. AZTech was formed by 19 public-sector partners and 13 private-sector partners by building on existing rela- tionships and recruiting organizations and interest groups not traditionally involved in transportation activities. On behalf of the partnership, Arizona DOT (ADOT) performs project administration, and Maricopa County performs project man- agement. Individual projects are administered through col- laborative arrangements among AZTech partners (1). Many of the projects implemented as part of the MMDI specifically focused on sharing of information between public safety and transportation agencies in the Phoenix metropolitan area. 1.2 Roles and Responsibilities 1.2.1 Phoenix Fire Department The Phoenix Fire Department (Phoenix FD) operates 47 fire stations, 54 engine companies, 13 ladder companies, and 29 ambulances. The primary roles and responsibilities of the Phoenix FD in the context of TIM include fire suppres- sion, hazardous materials containment, clean up, extraction of crash victims from vehicles, and the provision of emergency medical services (EMS). Nine hundred Phoenix firefighters are trained emergency medical technicians (EMTs), while an additional 300 firefighters have received additional training to become certified paramedics, which enables them to pro- vide advanced life support treatment. The Phoenix FD also operates the regional dispatch cen- ter. The center is staffed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The center serves as the dispatch center for fire and EMS in 18 jurisdictions throughout the Phoenix metropolitan area. 1.2.2 Arizona Department of Public Safety The Arizona Department of Public Safety (Arizona DPS) is a state-level law enforcement agency that works in part- nership with other state, local, and federal agencies to protect the public. The Arizona DPS’s highway patrol division is responsible for responding to incidents that occur on free- ways in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Primary responsibil- ities at the incident scene are to establish traffic control mea- sures and conduct crash investigations. Arizona DPS, under the sponsorship of the American Auto- mobile Association (AAA) and the Maricopa County Associ- ation of Governments (MAG), also operates freeway service patrols 18 hours a day, 7 days a week. Operational responsibil- ities of the freeway service patrols as they relate to TIM include • Assisting uniformed officers with traffic control strate- gies at the incident scene, • Assisting motorists with minor repairs and tire changes, • Removing debris from the roadway, • Request towing services for disabled vehicles, • Removing disabled vehicles from the roadway to a safe location, and • Supporting tasks force initiatives such as driving under the influence (DUI) enforcement. Arizona DPS also assists in providing traveler information through the Highway Condition Reporting System (HCRS). HCRS functions are described below. 1.2.3 Maricopa County Department of Transportation The focal point of Maricopa County Department of Trans- portation operations as they relate to TIM is the operation and coordination of the Regional Emergency Action Coordinating Team (REACT). REACT’s operations are critical in support- ing the TIM functions of local police and fire departments, especially in assuming traffic management functions, which enable the roadway to be opened quicker. REACT members are assigned specially designed response vehicles that are equipped with traffic control equipment and devices that meet city, state, and federal requirements. REACT operates within a limited number of jurisdictions 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 1 The Metropolitan Model Deployment Initiative (MMDI) was an aggressive deploy- ment of intelligent transportation systems (ITS) at four urban sites: New York/New Jersey/Connecticut, Phoenix, San Antonio, and Seattle. These sites were chosen because of their high level of preexisting ITS and the promise of evaluating the integration of these legacy ITS components together with new ITS components.

1.2.4 Arizona Department of Transportation The ADOT Traffic Operations Center (TOC) serves as the statewide control center for traffic operations and is opera- tional 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The ADOT TOC also serves as the focal point for the TIM operations. TIM func- tions housed in the TOC include detection, verification, traf- fic management, and traveller information dissemination (2). With respect to incident detection, ADOT has embedded detectors in the pavement on the freeways to collect speed and volume data. Should an incident occur that significantly disrupts traffic, an alarm will be triggered. The operator in the TOC can then use one of the more than 60 closed-circuit televisions (CCTVs) that have been implemented throughout the freeway system to verify the incident should the incident happen within proximity to the camera. The CCTV can also be used to monitor the ensuing traffic impacts of the incident. With this information, the operator can execute the most appropriate response in terms of controlling ramp meters and variable message signs (VMSs). The ADOT also operates a traveler information website that contains a number of data elements, including • Images captured every 7 minutes from the system of CCTVs, and • A color-coded flow map that provides link speeds for the freeway system in the Phoenix metropolitan area. The traveler information system also includes information that is generated through the HCRS. HCRS is designed to pro- vide statewide traveler information that is generated through a variety of sources, jurisdictions, and operating agencies. Data provided by HCRS include • Current and planned road closures and alternate routes; • Current restrictions, such as closed lanes and speed reductions; • Incident or accident location and status; and • Current roadway conditions, including weather infor- mation. The TOC also serves as a remote point of operation for the I-10 deck tunnel. Tunnel operations systems controlled from within the TOC include • Vent room fans, • 25 CCTV cameras, • A tunnel lighting system, • Emergency call boxes, • Carbon monoxide sensors, and • Loop detectors. In the Phoenix metropolitan, the ADOT also operates the freeway service patrol. The freeway service patrol is composed of trained operations staff who assist in the operation of free- ways. As it pertains to TIM, the primary function of the free- way service patrol is to support traffic control functions near E-2 the incident. The freeway service patrol’s assistance is typi- cally requested only when one or more travel lanes are closed on the freeway for more than 1 hour. The freeway service patrol’s vehicles are operated by ADOT under a grant pro- vided by the Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG). 1.3 Study Approach and Methodology Specific data related to information exchanges in the Phoenix metropolitan area were collected during site visits to Phoenix FD, the Maricopa County Department of Trans- portation, the City of Mesa Police Department, and the Mari- copa County Sheriff’s Department in July 2002. Site visits provided researchers with the opportunity to observe data sharing and communication between the agencies in the con- text of actual operations. Andy MacFarlane and Ron Burch hosted the visit to the Phoenix FD. Barbara Hauser hosted the site visit to the Maricopa County Department of Transporta- tion Operations Center. Joe Noce hosted the site visit to the City of Mesa Police Department. A telephone interview was conducted with Tim of Wolfe of ADOT. Periodic follow-up phone interviews were conducted with the hosts to collect and verify additional information. Additionally, an extensive literature search was conducted to provide background infor- mation on various information-sharing projects that had been initiated in the Phoenix metropolitan area. 1.4 Acknowledgments The key contributors to the Phoenix case study are • Ron Burch, Phoenix FD; • Barbara Hauser, ITS Incident Management Coordinator, Maricopa County Department of Transportation; and • Andy Macfarlane, Phoenix FD; • Joe Noce, Project Manager, City of Mesa Police Depart- ment; and • Tim Wolfe, ADOT. 2 INFORMATION-SHARING METHODS Described below are the voice, data, and multimedia meth- ods employed in the Phoenix metropolitan area between pub- lic safety and transportation agencies to exchange informa- tion in the context of TIM. 2.1 Remote Voice Freeway service patrol vehicles are dually equipped with Arizona Department of Public Safety (DPS) and ADOT radio systems. As a result, a majority of the time, DPS officers who respond to incidents in the field request freeway service patrol assistance directly using the Arizona DPS radio system, as opposed to routing communications through the agencies’

respective dispatch centers, as is common practice with ser- vice patrol operations. However, occasionally it is necessary for the Arizona DPS dispatcher to contact the ADOT dis- patcher via telephone to request assistance in managing traf- fic at the incident scene. When this occurs, information that is typically communicated to the ADOT dispatcher includes • Location and type of incident, • Equipment and number of response personnel requested, • Number of lanes blocked by the incident, • Name and call sign of the officer in the field requesting assistance, and • Location of the command post and best access route (3). When Phoenix FD was receiving video feeds from ADOT, it was sometimes necessary for the Phoenix FD dispatcher to verbally communicate with the operator in the TOC. More often than not, the Phoenix FD dispatcher would request cam- era views to be changed so that the dispatcher could view the prevailing traffic conditions and route the response vehicle along the most expeditious path. A direct phone line was used between the dispatch center and the TOC to accommodate these communications. 2.2 Text Transfer Arizona DPS has HCRS workstations in three dispatch cen- ters statewide. This enables Arizona DPS to directly enter roadway closures or any other circumstance affecting the oper- ations of state highways into HCRS. Typically, DPS enters the information directly if it responds to the incident without sup- port from ADOT. If ADOT assists in the response, ADOT enters the closure information. When DPS enters information, an operator in the Arizona DOT TOC reviews the information to ensure that it has been entered correctly. The Arizona Division of Emergency Services also has an HCRS workstation; however, the workstation is not set up to enable the division to enter data. Rather, it is set up to enable the division to monitor closures that could affect operations. Maricopa County DOT’s REACT is responsible for assist- ing with traffic management and traveler information func- tions of TIM. REACT is notified of requests for assistance with traffic management at the scene of the traffic incidents via alphanumeric pagers. At least 1 of REACT’s 12 team members is on-call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Phoenix FD receives emergency and planned maintenance road closure updates from the City of Phoenix Public Works via facsimile. Closure data assist the Phoenix FD dispatchers with ensuring that response vehicles avoid closures, thereby increasing response times. Also of note about information sharing between public safety and transportation agencies was a plan to develop a system that would move incident data to the Phoenix FD E-3 from the ADOT TOC. However, no formal plan, let alone a well-defined end user application, was ever defined. ADOT’s interest in planning, designing, and implementing such a sys- tem began to diminish, and consequently this initiative never moved forward beyond initial discussions. 2.3 Other Media and Advanced Technologies Previously, through an agreement with ADOT, Phoenix FD dispatchers received video images that were shown on moni- tors in the dispatch center. Although rights to control the pan-tilt-zoom functions of the cameras were never defined in a formal agreement, dispatchers were able to control the cam- eras. Dispatchers primarily used the information to provide responders with closure information that helped to foster a more expedient response. This system is no longer operational due to a technical problem with the video coder/decoder (CODEC) that is on the ADOT end. Dispatchers found this interface to be very beneficial and would like to restore this functionality. Dispatchers have a significant interest in get- ting the video links back into the operations center. 2.4 Additional Activities The Phoenix FD has been quite active in recent years in exchanging information within the public safety community and between public safety and outside agencies, such as trans- portation. Several years ago, the U.S. Department of Trans- portation’s ITS Joint Program Office, in partnership with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), decided to develop a family of standards that covered the exchange of incident information between and within public safety and transportation systems. That standard became the IEEE 1512 family of standards, which contains the specifica- tions for message sets and data elements needed to implement such an interface. For a time, a Phoenix FD representative chaired the committee that developed the standard. In addi- tion, the Phoenix FD was involved with (1) a Health Level 7 effort to standardize the exchange of medical information and (2) the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) on Project 36, which worked to standard- ize the exchange of information between computer-aided dis- patching (CAD) systems. 3 REFERENCES 1. Phoenix Metropolitan Model Deployment Initiative—Evalua- tion Report. US Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, ITS Joint Program Office. 2. Arizona Department of Transportation Traffic Operations Cen- ter Operations Manual, October 1998. 3. Arizona Department of Transportation Traffic Operations Cen- ter Operations Manual, October 1998.