Intended to assist agencies responsible for incident management activities on public roadways to improve their programs and operations.Organized into three major sections: Introduction to incident management; organizing, planning, designing and implementing an incident management program; operational and technical approaches to improving the incident management process.

This synthesis will be of interest to traffic engineers, planners, and others interested in how highway agencies deal with freeway incidents. Information is provided on the procedures and processes that highway agencies use to respond to traffic congestion caused by incidents on freeways. Congestion on freeways frequently is caused by incidents such as stalled vehicles or accidents that reduce the capacity of the freeway below the level of demand. This report of the Transportation Research Board describes the procedures and processes used by states to respond to traffic congestion caused by incidents on freeways.

With full color photographs and other illustrations.

"The original edition of this 'Traffic Incident Management Systems' (TIMS) report was released in 2008 as part of a cooperative agreement between the UFSA and the International Fire Service Training Association (IFSTA) at Oklahoma State University (OSU). The project was funded by the DOT Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). This latest 2011 edition of TIMS was developed in response to the release of the 2009 edition of the DOT/FHWA's Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways (MUTCD). Changes in the 2009 MUTCD affected the content of the 2008 TIMS report and once again the DOT/ FHWA funded the USFA to work with IFSTA to provide an updated report."--Page 2.

This handbook was designed to assist responsible agencies in managing roadway incidents. It contains: 1) a general discussion of the roadway incident problem and solutions; 2) how to get an incident management program started; 3) details of incident management techniques; and, 4) administrative aspects including financing promotion, and evaluation.