What is Quick Clearance?

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Quick Clearance is the practice of safely and rapidly removing

temporary obstructions from the roadway.

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Such obstructions include disabled or wrecked vehicles, debris, and spilled cargo.  According to the stated definition, quick clearance practices increase the safety of incident responders and victims by minimizing their exposure to adjacent passing traffic.  Also, a reduced probability of secondary incidents accompanies lower congestion levels resulting from fast removal of lane-blocking obstructions.

 

 

Background on the Indiana Quick Clearance

Working Group

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The Indiana Quick Clearance Working Group was created in the fall of 2007 by representatives from the Indiana State Police and Indiana Department of Transportation with support from the Federal Highway Administration - Indiana Division. This working group gained executive support from ISP and INDOT to dedicate resources to the research and development of Quick Clearance practices in State of Indiana. With support from the agency heads, the working group moved forward creating a steering group and developing an intermediate action plan.

 

The steering group organized a Quick Clearance workshop in early December 2007 at the joint ISP Post 52 / INDOT Indianapolis Traffic Management Center. This workshop was sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration and brought subject matter experts from around the country to share their experiences in developing their respective state's Quick Clearance programs. Attendees included Indiana based stakeholders from a variety of disciplines that routinely respond to highway incidents and key representatives from the State of Florida and the State of Washington that have detailed the specifics of Quick Clearance programs in their home jurisdictions. 

 

In January of 2009 the Quick Clearance Working Group was changed to IN-TIME (Indiana Traffic Incident Management Effort and the following bylaws were created.

 

IN-TIME Group Bylaws

01-20-2009

 

IN-TIME

Indiana- Traffic Incident Management Effort

Bylaws 2009

 

Executive Committee

• Each Agency Head and Association Executive Officer, chaired by the ISP Superintendent

 

IN-TIME Chair

• To be an ISP enforcement officer appointed by the ISP Superintendent on April 1 of each year
• Voting member and has the tie breaking vote if the need arises
• Shall preside at all meetings of the IN-TIME Group
• Shall promote and foster the interests of the IN-TIME and perform the duties customarily required of such an officer as assigned by the Executive Committee
• Shall be responsible for the orientation of new members to IN-TIME

 

IN-TIME Vice Chair

• A member in good standing
• Voted into office by all members of the IN-TIME Group (must receive at least a simple majority vote)
• To serve a one year term, beginning April 1 of each year, with a two year consecutive limit
• Must be an IN-TIME Association member that is a routine attendee
• Is the alternate for the Chair and shall serve in his/her absence

 

IN-TIME Secretary

• A member in good standing
• Voted into office by all members of the IN-TIME Group (must receive at least a simple majority vote)
• To serve a one year term, beginning April 1 of each year, with a two year consecutive limit
• Must be an IN-TIME member that is a routine attendee
• Shall keep minutes of all meetings for submission to the Executive Committee and to be displayed on the IN-TIME web page
• Shall keep an updated roster of IN-TIME members
• Is the alternate for the Vice-Chair
• Is responsible for the chairmanship of the Election Committee

 

 

IN-TIME Member

• An appointee from an Agency or Association stakeholder to represent that Agency or Association

 

Proxy

• An Agency or Association head may appoint a Proxy for when the original appointee cannot attend.  The appointment should be recognized in writing, to include e-mail, prior to the next scheduled meeting 

 

Quorum

• At least 2/3's of current members present to conduct business

 

Regular Attendance

• If an Agency or Association misses three meetings in a row they will be considered as non-active and removed from the member list.  They will be required to ask for reinstatement to the IN-TIME Group to restore membership.

 

Rules of Order- Robert's Rules of Order Motions (10th Edition)

 

Meeting dates

• Dates and times to be determined by the chair

 

Election Committee

• Chaired by the Secretary and members appointed by the IN-TIME chair.
• Shall ask for volunteers and nominate persons to be placed on the ballot for voting for Vice-Chair and the Secretary positions.  
• Nominations shall be submitted to IN-TIME Group at the first meeting of the New Year.

 

Committee

• Group of members or non-members assigned to examine and/or evaluate a given task and report back to the IN-TIME group with information and recommendations.  A status report shall be given at each regularly scheduled meeting.  The committee chair and all members will be appointed by the IN-TIME Chair.

 

Charter Committee

• Initial members of the Quick Clearance Working Group from 2007
  
  • ISP - Major Thomas Melville
  • INDOT - Guy Boruff
  • INDOT - Jay Wasson
  • INDOT - Kim Peters
  • FHWA - Karen Stippich
  • IDEM - Jason Sewell

 

Responsibility is to provide guidance to the IN-TIME Group to stay on course for the original purpose of Quick Clearance and the Open Roads Initiative.  Members do not have a vote unless they have been appointed by their agency as the representative for the IN-TIME Group or are in an elected position.

 

Mission Statement

The IN-TIME group will work to provide a common framework for development of traffic incident management policies and training programs across the various responder disciplines. This will include those competencies required from the time of notification until the incident is cleared.

 

This group will also coordinate and address its current, and any future initiatives that have been determined by the IN-TIME members:

o   Key policy recommendations

o   Training recommendations

o   Legislative recommendations

o   Unified Incident Command recommendations

o   Traffic Incident Management and Quick Clearance planning material

o   Be a clearinghouse for TIM and QC best practices, an avenue for peer sharing, to strive for public/motorist safety through reducing congestion and higher risks of secondary crashes

o   Partnership with the media

o   Prompt and accurate reporting, detection and verification of incidents and prompt and accurate notification of all responders

o   Regional/District IN-TIME groups (will be formed to insure multi-lateral policy making and training at the local level)

 

Statement of Values:

Integrity: Providing our peers with the basis of trust, accountability and respect.

 

Professionalism: Consistently developing the highest level of competence, work ethic, openness to new ideas, and continuous self-improvement.

 

Leadership: To inspire, influence and support our members and partners in the pursuit of our mission.

 

Teamwork: Valuing people working together to achieve common goals and partnerships to enhance our effectiveness.

 

Outreach

• Establish IN-TIME as the "go-to" group for advice and support on issues related to the Open Road Philosophy. 
• Further establish and enhance collaboration with organizations with similar goals and values.
• Increase the visibility of IN-TIME best practices with the motoring public
• Partner with the Media to get the Open Road Philosophy out to the motoring public
• Influence positive government direction on traffic safety, enforcement and security issues at all levels on Open Road safety matters
• Implement a multi-disciplinary training and certification program, including NIMS/NUG compliant interdisciplinary training, for all TIM responders

 

 

Definitions

Incident

For the purpose of IN-TIME, we define a traffic incident as any nonrecurring event, such as a vehicle crash, vehicle breakdown, or other special event, that causes a reduction in highway capacity and/or an increase in demand. 

 

Secondary incident

An incident that occurs as a direct or indirect result of a previous incident. If a crash occurs in the queue expanding from an initial incident (of any kind) for example, one car not able to slow down sufficiently and rams the car in front of it in the back while in the queue-this is a secondary incident. Most secondary incidents are crashes, but can be other incidents, such as a car overheating and stalling because it is sitting idle in the queue rather than moving.

 

Traffic Incident Management Terms

• Notification/verification time: the time from initial notification until the first responder is contacted
• Response time: the time from notification for a first responder to arrive at the scene
• Roadway clearance time: the time, from notification, to clear the traveled lanes
• Incident clearance time: the full time, from notification, to clear the scene, roadway clearance plus site clearance
• Recovery time: from the time all lanes are cleared for travel from the resulting queue to dissipation of backup and traffic returns to "normal" (normal= the average time for that location at that time of day)
• Incident influence time: the total impact time of the incident
• Incident duration: the full length of the incident itself
• Incident-related delay: the cumulative delay caused directly by the incident
• Queue extension: lane-miles of backup
• Secondary crash rate: some measure of the rate of secondary crashes.