Emergency Transportation Operations
photos of traffic merging onto congested highway, congestion in snowstorm, variable message sign, cargo, variable speed limit sign in a work zone, and a freeway at night
Office of Operations 21st Century Operations using 21st Century Technologies

Traffic Management for Planned Special Events

Community Gathersing

The Planned Special Events Program provides handbooks, training and checklists to help practitioners as they develop plans using the advance information regarding the

  • Advanced planning and coordination to develop and deploy the operational strategies, traffic control plans, protocols, procedures, and technologies needed to control traffic and share real-time information with other stakeholders on the day of the event.
  • Location, time, duration, and demand expected for a planned special event. Public agencies can exploit this advanced information to minimize the effect these events may have on the general public, motorists, public agencies, and others service providers.
  • Way communities can enhance their image by providing a safe, efficient, and convenient environment for those who travel to and from an event, while at the same time minimizing any congestion-related impacts it may have on other motorists.
Car Raising Event Gathering

2012 Lifesavers Conference

The National Conference on Highway Safety Priorities was held in Orlando, Florida from June 14-16, 2012. For the first time, the Lifesavers Conference included a Traffic Incident Management/ Planned Special Events (TIM/PSE) track. With more than 1,600 people in attendance at the 2012 Lifesavers Conference, the ten sessions as part of (TIM/PSE) track was made available to its widest audience ever. During the course of the conference, attendees heard from more than 25 experts on a range of topics including:

  • Making the Roads Safer
  • Safety First: Technologies for Traffic Incident Management and Planned Special Events
  • Training Initiatives for a Safer and Better Prepared Workforce for TIM/PSE
  • Research and Data Needs
  • The State of the Practice: Putting Information into the Hands of the Practitioners
  • Performance Measures for Traffic Incident and Planned Special Events
  • The Safety Business Case Study for TIM and PSE
  • Traffic Safety at Planned Special Events
  • Learning from Other Disciplines: Cross-Cutting Issues
  • TIM Case Studies: Traffic Incident Management and Planned Special Events

For those presentations from the TIM/PSE track and others from the conference, that have been posted, they may be viewed at http://www.lifesaversconference.org/workshops.html.

Publications

National Special Security Events: Transportation Planning for Planned Special Events

This document provides a transportation overview of National Special Security Event (NSSE)s. As part of the transportation perspective, the document includes lessons learned from previous NSSEs, two transportation-focused case studies of two recent NSSEs, a checklist to assist transportation practitioners as they prepare for and execute an NSSE, a playbook that identifies key transportation activities for an NSSE, an NSSE fact sheet, a template as an aid to provide information about an NSSE to appropriate groups in both the planning and implementation phases of these events, and a resource directory. The primary audiences for this document are state departments of transportation (DOTs) and local transportation, public works, and law enforcement agencies responsible for planning and executing transportation for NSSEs.

  • Report Publication Number: FHWA-HOP-11-012 (HTML, PDF 2.8MB)

For a listing of Traffic Management For Planned Special Events publications, please visit the Office Of Operations' Publications Web page.

Contact Us

For more information, please contact:

Laurel J. Radow
Evacuations and Planned Special Events Program Manager
Emergency Transportation Operations Team
Office of Operations, Federal Highway Administration
Department of Transportation
202-366-2855
Laurel.Radow@dot.gov

To view PDF files, you need the Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Office of Operations