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

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19 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS The survey locations provided clear examples of successes and failures of sharing traffic incident information between transportation agencies and public safety agencies. The case studies further illustrated that there is no single guaranteed solution and that considerable and continuing effort must be devoted to fostering collaboration between public safety agen- cies and transportation agencies. Investigators did not find major problems between public safety and transportation agencies at any of the locations. Indeed, a fair amount of effort went into selecting these particular sites because pub- lic safety agencies and transportation agencies were already exchanging information. These exchanges were not sponta- neous—far from it. Most exchanges depended on relation- ships that had been built up over many years with a great deal of effort invested by all agencies involved. However, even within established, successful, and mature joint operations between transportation agencies and public safety agencies, some conflicts still surface now and again. Some steps can be taken to minimize conflict and establish the basis for effective information coordination: • Establish a working-level rapport with responders from every agency that works on incidents in the area of interest. • Ensure that working-level relationships are supported by standardized operational procedures. • Create interagency agreements and system interconnec- tions with key involved agencies. • Institutionalize senior-level relationships among the key agencies through a combination of policy agreements, interagency organizations, coordinated budget planning, and other processes to ensure that operational partnerships survive changes in political or management leadership. Furthermore, the National Fire Service Incident Manage- ment System Consortium’s (NFSIMSC’s) guidebook on the subject of managing highway incidents (due to be published in mid-2004) makes the case for cooperative relationships: It is imperative that those working together on highway inci- dent management understand everyone’s functional capabili- ties and that they resolve jurisdictional and institutional issues. The success of any sort of joint operation rests upon the abil- ity of people to work together. This guide will not presume to instruct the user in achieving operational harmony, but shall insist it be done. Incident Commanders must be empowered to accomplish their jobs, trained in how to perform, and given suf- ficient resources. When they are, they can accomplish all of our missions to save and protect lives, property, and the environ- ment and to maintain traffic flow on our nation’s highways (10). The case study investigations for this study confirmed the NFSIMSC’s conclusion. Of the various methods of sharing information presented in this report, no single one is best. The characteristics of the local environment and organizations are key factors affecting the success of a method. There is no guar- antee that implementing any of these methods under different institutional, operational, or technical situations will achieve the same results as reported in the case studies. However, the successful programs identified in the case studies are certainly viable candidates for emulation elsewhere. As has been shown in all of the communities visited dur- ing this research project, it is important to consider the information needs of all of the members of the highway response community. Information sharing should be planned and implemented between the transportation agencies and a community of peer organizations. It is a fundamental mistake to presume that public safety organizations in a community “speak with one voice.” If such a presumption is translated into institutional agreements, organizational procedures, or technical system designs, then information sharing between transportation and the rest of the response community will be restricted and could be delayed, filtered, or discontinuous. Ultimately, decisions to add or change information-sharing methods for TIM will depend on valid trade-off analyses. Robust, quantified data on the benefits of specific TIM information-sharing practices will be essential to policy deci- sion makers and operational practitioners looking to improve traffic operations and safety in their jurisdictions. However, as noted in the previous section, such data on TIM perfor- mance and benefits are rare. It is recommended that a set of statistical measures of effectiveness be formulated by the participating agencies and that sampling of these statistics be taken for as long a base- line period as possible prior to implementing new TIM ele- ments. Continued sampling after joint operations commence will then provide the basis for comparing performance before and after the implementation. This comparison will generate an original contribution to the highway incident management body of knowledge.