State Police/ DOTD Announce Traffic Incident Management Program

BATON ROUGE - The Louisiana State Police, in partnership with the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, announced today the implementation of a statewide Traffic Incident Management system (TIM), a multi-disciplinary and systematic approach to keeping our roadways safe. The TIM program is designed to ensure that all traffic incidents are consistently handled and cleared from roadways as safely and quickly as possible. A “traffic incident” can include a variety of events such as traffic crashes, breakdowns, spilled cargo, or any occurrence that impedes the normal flow of traffic.
The purpose of the TIM program is to train any individual that may respond to a traffic incident including but not limited to law enforcement, fire departments, EMS, and towing and recovery vehicle operators. After receiving the training, individuals responding to a traffic incident will be able to quickly detect and clear temporary obstructions on roadways, notify the public of road closures and optional detours, and finally restore normal traffic flow in a safe and efficient manner. The training also includes vital lessons on incident scene safety, benefiting both first responders and the motoring public. The TIM program is critical to limiting first responders’ exposure time on roadways which will decrease secondary fatal and injury crashes that occur as a result of an initial traffic incident. To help reach this goal and improve the safety of our roadways, the Louisiana State Police will be training every trooper across the state, including a multitude of other law enforcement agencies and incident responders.
“By implementing this type of traffic management system, our primary goal is to improve the safety of the general public, as well as, the incident responders who mitigate traffic scenes,” said Colonel Mike Edmonson, State Police Superintendent. “We also hope to provide more accurate information to the public which will enable them to make informed decisions on utilizing alternate routes. The system’s outcome should also reduce the time frame of roadway closures and disruptions.”
“At DOTD, and with our partners here, the No. 1 goal is safety,” said DOTD Secretary Sherri H. LeBas. “This program and the training involved will help ensure that responders operate in a consistent and safe manner. This training will help everyone responding to an incident work together as a team and will help decrease the number of secondary crashes that happen as a result of the initial incident.”
“This project is important to the firefighters of this state as we know the importance of quick response times to save lives and also to prevent incidents,” states Louisiana State Fire Marshal Chief H. Butch Browning. “We are proud partners in this effort.”
The TIM program is a nationwide initiative driven by the Federal Highway Administration with a goal of training over 50,000 incident responders by December 2014. Currently, 33 states have implemented the program training over 31,000 incident responders.
For more on traffic safety, road closures, and pertinent safety information in your area please visit the Louisiana State Police website and/or Facebook page at www.lsp.org and www.facebook.com/LouisianaStatePolice, the DOTD Traveler information page at www.511la.org, and the Federal Highway Administration website at www.fhwa.dot.gov.