Incident Management Team

The safety of the Region's transportation system is a fundamental concern of the South Western Regional Planning Agency and its member municipalities. The ability to detect, respond and bring swift resolution to incidents is essential to the maintenance of public safety.  Incident management requires considerable amounts of coordination and planning, which are the responsibility of the Incident Management Team.  This page contains more information about the incident management team as well as key documents.

• South Western Region Incident Management Team
  • Documents
• Statewide Incident Management Task Force

South Western Region Incident Management Team

Why is an incident management team needed?

An incident management team is an essential element of a comprehensive incident management program and brings together representatives from various agencies involved with, or affected by, transportation incidents. They hold regular meetings to discuss how to improve their actions and coordination when incidents occur.

The South Western Region Freeway Management Team was organized in 1991 under the guidance of the South Western Region Metropolitan Planning Organization and the Region's mayors, first selectmen and transit directors. The creation of the team was a reaction, in large part, to the 1991 Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA). ISTEA, as enacted and signed into law by Congress and President Bush, served to ratify a growing belief that the nation could no longer build its way out of congestion; rather, there was a need to better manage existing transportation systems.

While the original focus of the Freeway Management Team was on highway incidents, the rail system parallel to I-95 expanded the team's focus to cover other elements of the regional transportation system. Furthermore, with the arrival of high speed passenger ferry service in 1998 as another component of the Region's transportation network, the name of the team was changed to "South Western Region Incident Management Team" to reflect its multi-modal focus.

Who is represented on the Incident Management Team?

The South Western Region Incident Management Team includes representatives from various agencies involved with transportation incidents, including:

• Municipal police, fire, and traffic departments;
• Emergency medical services;
• Connecticut Department of Transportation;
• Connecticut State Police;
• Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection;
• Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection;
• Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles;
• Connecticut Office of Emergency Management;
• Federal Highway Administration;
• United States Coast Guard;
• Passenger ferry operators;
• Metro-North Commuter Railroad;
• Towing and recovery professionals; and
• South Western Regional Planning Agency.

The Team operates with the support of the South Western Regional Planning Agency.

What does an Incident Management Team do?

The Team meets on a regular basis to:

• Increase awareness and develop relationships among all parties involved in response to transportation incidents;
• Coordinate activities to provide the most effective and efficient approach to servicing transportation incidents;
• Assist in the development of an overall plan for coordination of Team activities and response to incidents;
• Critique past efforts of the Team in responding to major transportation incidents and develop modifications and revisions to the overall coordinated effort;
• Support Team members in obtaining resources in the response to incidents; and
• Assist in development of Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) Plan for the Region.

Documents

• IMT Activities: 1991-2005

Statewide Incident Management Task Force

The Transportation Strategy Board (TSB) was created in 2001 to enhance Connecticut’s economic position and quality of life through the development of a statewide transportation strategy. The TSB’s January 2003 action plan, Transportation: A Strategic Investment created an Incident Management Task Force that was asked to develop policies and an implementation plan to enhance accident clearance/highway assistance and reduce traffic delays caused by incidents. The Task Force was to look at four aspects of incident management:

1. Standards for highway incident response times
2. Diversion plans for serious accidents that close limited access highways
3. Primary authority among responders to manage a highway incident scene
4. Expanding the Connecticut Highway Assistance Motorist Patrol (CHAMP) service

In October 2003, the Task Force issued a draft White Paper that reviewed current incident management practices and recommended more than 50 strategies to improve incident response, improve clearance times, and reduce incident-related congestion. The TSB endorsed the Task Force recommendations and submitted the report to the Governor and legislature. The documents include:

• TSB Incident Management Task Force White Paper
• TSB Transmittal to Governor
• Cost Estimates

Key incident management recommendations of the White Paper include:

1. Establish a permanent Statewide Incident Management Task Force
2. Review, revise, reissue Statewide Incident Management Policy
3. Refocus energy and investment in incident management
4. Support Unified Command System: develop manual and undertake training and exercises
5. Adopt measures to improve response time
6. Expand pre-planned diversion routes, make them more universally available
7. Adopt the unified command system, prepare operations manual, train and drill
8. Expand the CHAMP service
9. Address additional fire service, emergency responder and towing concerns
10. Improve traveler information systems such as the ConnDOT website and a 511 system to include up-to-date incident information
11. Increase interoperable communication capability among responders
12. Increase access to video cameras
13. Expand standpipe program
15. Involve RPOs in outreach to emergency responders
16. Modify regulations and adopt legislation to improve the towing and recovery response to incidents
17. Study proposal to pre-position towing vehicles on the highway at strategic times and places

First Steps: 2003 and 2004

• Establish a permanent Statewide Incident Management Task Force—created in November 2003 and includes South Western Region representatives from fire and regional planning
• Review, revise, reissue Statewide Incident Management Policy—a recommended statewide policy was developed in 2004 and is being reviewed by state agencies
• Refocus energy and investment in incident management—the FY2005 state budget included funding for expansion of CHAMP and development of additional diversion route maps
• Support Unified Command System (UCS): develop a manual and undertake training and exercises—a subcommittee of the Task Force and the Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security (DEMHS) is developing the UCS-National Incident Management System (NIMS) program and manual

Ongoing Efforts

• Continue the work initiated by this study
• Develop cooperative policies—improvements to various policies and procedures such as towing and recovery have been made
• Develop, cost and prioritize projects
• Seek funding for high priority projects
• Evaluate progress
• Share lessons learned—after action reviews of major incidents have been arranged, e.g. I-95 Howard Avenue Bridge 2004
• Involve regional planning organizations in outreach efforts—SWRPA and the Capitol Region Council of Governments staff co-chair a Task Force subcommittee that promotes and supports regional incident management teams/committees

Accomplishments

• The Connecticut Incident Management Policy was adopted in April 2007 by state agencies and other stakeholder organizations.

Meetings and Related Documents

• TSB Agenda for 7-17-08 Meeting
• TSB Meeting Minutes from 7-17-08 Meeting
• TSB Congestion Pricing Study Outline - Statewide RFP
• TSB Incident Management Task Force Status as of 7-24-08

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