Traffic incidents cause a considerable amount of highway congestion, particularly ‘major’ crashes that involve lane closures, personal injury, and multiple respondents. In this study, PATH investigated the current incident clearance practices of state and local agencies in order to refine those practices for faster clearance throughout California. Researchers designed new procedures and guidelines to improve clearance times and provided those recommendations to first responder agencies in 2013. Researchers are now advising public agencies on how to collect, process, and maintain incident data to track progress and make additional improvements in future years.
