ITS Heartland wins NOCoE award at Transportation Research Board Meeting in Washgington D.C.

By Tom Hein, Public Affairs Manager for Sedgwick County

At the 98^th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board in Washington D.C. this week, the National Operations Center of Excellence (NOCoE) presented the ITS Heartland chapter with an award in the category of Improving Agency TSMO Capabilities. TSMO is a Federal Highway Administration toolbox for Transportation Systems Management and Operations.

According to the ITS Heartland’s website, TSMO focuses on actively managing the multi-modal transportation network to deliver improved safety and mobility outcomes. Its philosophy is managing our valuable transportation system in a way that preserves what we have already built by using investments wisely on projects that improve operations.

 

Presenting the award is NOCoE managing director Patrick Son (left) and accepting is Randy Johnson, KC Scout manager and ITS Heartland president, Tom Hein, WICHway manager and project administrator, and consultant project manager Matt Volz.

Kansas DOT is the lead state for the ITS Heartland project. The chapter is a five-state Intelligent Transportation Systems coalition that also includes Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma DOTs, transportation industry consultants and product suppliers.

ITS Heartland’s mission is to improve the quality of life for those transportation uses who live and invest in America’s Heartland, though advanced transportation technologies and communications.

 

The TSMO University Education program created a series of archived webinars and live training sessions. 

The winning project was the ITS Heartland TSMO University Education Program, which created a series of archived webinars and hosted live training sessions on traffic incident management, highlights intelligent transportation technologies that increase roadway safety and improve traffic information sharing. The webinars encourage cross-jurisdictional agency cooperation and provide continuing traffic operations and management outreach to transportation administrators, planners, designers, maintenance crews, first responders and other transportation professionals.

NOCoE received more than 60 entries in four award categories. Other winners were the Arizona DOT for best TSMO project, North Carolina DOT for their response to a major incident or special event (Hurricane Florence), and in the public communication category, Oregon Traffic Incident Management responders for their use of social media.

For more information visit the NOCoE website at www.transportationops.org.

Learn more about the ITS Heartland TSMO program at www.itsheartland.org/tsmo-trainings/.

Wichita Metro area improves in incident response times

Part of Traffic Incident Response Week (Nov. 13 – 19) is looking at programs that are promoting a shared understanding of the requirements for quick incident clearance and best-practice safeguards for emergency responders and motorists.

In the Wichita metro area, over 1,000 emergency responders have received Traffic Incident Management (TIM) training. After an incident when two responders were struck by a vehicle at a scene in 2013, the entire Wichita Fire Department shared the program with their firefighters.

On Wichita’s highways, between 2013 and 2015, when TIM training began yielding results, traffic incident clearance times decreased by two hours. Average clearance times on highway incidents went from 150 minutes to just 34 minutes.

“TIM training showed emergency responders with different responsibilities why each  organization was doing what they were doing and how all of these roles could work together at a traffic scene,” said Kansas Highway Patrol Lieutenant Roger Baughman.

As a follow-up activity, law enforcement agencies, fire departments, EMTs, tow operators, 911 emergency communicators, WICHway traffic management center staff and other first responders meet bi-monthly to discuss recent traffic incidents, critiquing the clearance procedures and taking ideas for better scene clearance back to their organization.

Learn more about the national effort to reduce deaths and injuries to America’s emergency responders at www.respondersafety.com.

And visit the WICHway website (www.WICHway.org) to view Wichita’s highway cameras, message boards, traffic flow and road conditions during winter weather.