T3 Webinar:

Developing a Regional Concept for Transportation Operations

Text version of Webinar presentation:

"The Hampton Road Experience"

Description of image or images on a slide contained in brackets.

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The Hampton Roads Experience

Presented by:
Camelia Ravanbakht, PhD

Talking Technology & Transportation (T3) Webinar
July 25, 2007

Slide 1: Overview

• Regional Background
• RCTO and the Planning Process
• Building an RCTO for Incident Management
• RCTO Development Process
• Data Analysis
• RCTO Successes/Challenges
• Next Steps

Slide 2: The Hampton Roads Region

• Located in SE Virginia
• 10 cities and 6 counties, including Virginia Beach, Norfolk, and Williamsburg
• Over 1.6 million residents
• Economy driven by the military, ports, and tourism
• Connected by bridges/tunnels

Slide 3: The Hampton Roads Region

• Military and non-military peak periods
• Incidents in tunnels and on bridges tend to cause major delays/backups
• Large number of special events
• Heavy dependency on travel by personal vehicle
• Key Eastern Seaboard evacuation routes pass through region

[The slide displays one large image in the top left of the slide and five smaller images on the bottom of the slide. The larger image is a map of the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, with the Hampton Roads region of southwest Virginia highlighted. Beginning from the left, the bottom five images are: a naval vessel entering a port, a section of freeway jutting out into a large body of water, a beach with high-rise development, a crane used for loading and unloading ship cargo, and a bridge spanning a body of water.]

Slide 4: Congestion Management Process

PLEASE INSERT GRAPHICS HERE!!!!!

Slide 5: Operations Planning

• Over 50% of CMAQ funds allocated to ITS/Operations
• $152 million in Long Range Plan for ITS/Operations
• ITS Strategic Plan
  • First completed in 1995
  • Updated in 2000 and 2004
  • Expands Hampton Roads ITS program from a jurisdictional approach towards an integrated regional program
  • Regional architecture

Slide 6: Operations Planning

• Over 50% of CMAQ funds allocated to ITS/Operations
• $152 million in Long Range Plan for ITS/Operations
• ITS Strategic Plan
• First completed in 1995
• Updated in 2000 and 2004
• Expands Hampton Roads ITS program from a jurisdictional approach towards an integrated regional program
• Regional architecture

Slide 7: Operations Planning

• Hampton Roads Smart Traffic Center
  • Traffic, incident, and emergency management
  • Regional clearinghouse for traffic and traveler information collections and dissemination
  • Communications backbone for regional coordination and integration
• City STCs

Slide 8:

[This slide displays a real-time traffic camera image, from Virginia DOT, of a highway accident with the date and time noted.]

Slide 9: Building an RCTO for Incident Management

• Motivation
  • High profile incidents at tunnels and bridges causing major delay.
  • MPO Board requested staff and VDOT to improve incident management.
• Structure
  • Expanded ITS Stakeholders to public safety and emergency management.
  • Combined members of both ITS and Highway Incident Management committees.
  • Created RCTO Working Group.
  • Developed RCTO Charter.

Slide 10: Participants in RCTO Working Group

• Hampton Roads MPO
• Virginia Department of Transportation
• Virginia State Police
• Local fire & rescue
• Local traffic engineers & Public Works
• Local law enforcement
• Environmental & HazMat
• Local emergency medical services
• Towing & recovery (to be included)

Slide 11: RCTO Charter

• Endorsed by MPO in October 2005.
• Guide region's stakeholders in providing well-coordinated traffic incident management.
• Expand stakeholder group.
• Increase awareness of quick clearance principles.
• Provide cross-agency training
• Conduct post-incident reviews.

Slide 12: RCTO Objectives

• Derive an RCTO document through a series of collaborative activities.
• Describe the desired state of transportation operations in Hampton Roads
• Formalize several existing regional Traffic Incident Management (TIM) initiatives

Slide 13: Guiding Principles

• Broaden Operational Coordination
• Elevate Quick Clearance Principles
• Expand and enhance existing MOU
• Battle congestion caused by crashes and other disabled vehicles.

Slide 14: RCTO Performance Measures

• Diversion Response - How are motorists responding to information
• Clearance Time - by incident type
• Lane Blockage - Tracking the number of lanes blocked through the timeline of an incident

Slide 15: High Incident Locations

[Slide displays a map of freeways in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia. The top ten interstate segments with the most incidents in 2006 are highlighted in red.]

Slide 16: Safety Service Patrol Assistance by Type

[Slide shows safety service patrol assistance by type, in a pie chart format. Percentage breakdown by type is:

• Disabled 75% (574 incidents)
• Debris 5% (70 incidents)
• Accidents 9% (70 incidents)
• Abandoned 7% (57 incidents)
• Medical Emergency 0% (2 incidents)
• Vehicle Fire 0% (2 incidents)
• Special Event 0% (0 incidents)
• Unfounded 1% (5 incidents)
• CBA 1% (4 incidents)
• Other 2% (14 incidents)

Slide 17: Incident Duration, 2006

[Slide shows a chart that displays incident duration in 2006. Months are listed on the X axis, beginning with 1/6/2006 and extending through 1/29/2006. Minutes are listed on the Y axis. The chart shows three time measures: SSP (Safety Service Patrols) Response Time, Incident Clear Time, and Notification to Clear Time. Across all months, SSP Response Time was the fastest, followed by Incident Clear Time and Notification to Clear Time. ]

Slide 18: Incident Clearance

[Shown here is a line graph with % of total incidents cleared on the Y axis and minutes on the X axis]

Slide 19: ITS/Operations Funding in TIP

• Over 50% of CMAQ funds allocated to ITS and Operations projects
• In current TIP, over $30 million of CMAQ funds allocated to:
  • RCTO
  • CAD Integration
  • Incident diversion plan
  • Data Research Partnership with Universities
  • AVL for Emergency Service Vehicles
  • Several signal systems & other ITS-related projects

Slide 20: RCTO Successes

• Workshop with high-level management in state police, fire/rescue, local law enforcement, VDOT, and MPO
• Post-incident review meetings
• Peer-to-peer exchange with Arizona
• HazMat reporting document
• Planning joint outreach for Move it Law
• National Highway Institute class on traffic incident and roadway emergencies
• CMAQ Funds for RCTO document development

Slide 21: Challenges

• Educating policy level officials and stakeholders
• Competing for funding with other projects
• Project deployments and cost overruns
• Institutional issues
• Technical standardization
• Data quality
• Evaluation tools

Slide 22: Next Steps

• Continue monthly RCTO Working Group meetings
• Continue quarterly reporting to MPO and elected officials
• Complete RCTO Document
• Training
• Coordinate arterial/freeway operations
• Continue the work on "Bringing Planning and Operations" together.

For More Information:

Camelia Ravanbakht, PhD
Hampton Roads Planning District Commission
723 Woodlake Drive.Chesapeake, VA 23320
757.420.8300
email: cravanbakht@hrpdcva.gov
website: www.hrpdc.org

Access T3 Archives at: http://www.pcb.its.dot.gov/res_t3_archive.asp

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