Traffic Incident Management (TIM) 

 Performance Measurement

TIM teams across the country are 

beginning to explore measuring team 

or “program-level” TIM performance as 

the only means to improve multi-agency 

team response. TIM stakeholders 

share a common goal to safely restore 

the roadways as quickly as possible 

because this equates to lives saved:

• Every minute of incident delay multiplies 

traffic queues by a factor of four, and 

increases the risk for secondary crashes

• The likelihood of a secondary crash increases 

by 2.8% for each minute the primary incident 

continues to be a hazard

• Faster response time has a well-documented 

relationship to the increased likelihood of 

crash survival 

• Responder lives remain at risk every minute 

they are on the incident scene

On the Road to Success

Law enforcement, fire and rescue, emergency medical services, and transportation 

agencies involved in traffic incident management (TIM) share a common goal—

restoring the roadways as safely and quickly as possible. They know that every minute 

of incident delay multiplies traffic queues by a factor of four and increases the risk to 

responders’ and drivers’ lives. 

TIM teams across the country are recognizing that improvements in individual agency 

TIM operations are helpful, but that to make a real impact responders must work 

together to assess, identify and act on opportunities for improvement. In short, TIM 

has become a team sport. TIM teams across the country are increasingly interested in 

jointly measuring performance as a team to win more resources for TIM. 

The biggest barriers to jointly measuring performance of multiagency TIM operations 

include different definitions for common measures such as “incident clearance time,” 

institutional concerns over data sharing, and incompatible data systems. FHWA’s TIM 

Performance Measurement Focus State Initiative, however, has shown that all of these 

hurdles can be overcome.

FHWA’s Traffic Incident Management Program-Level 

Performance Measurement Focus State Initiative

FHWA launched a focus state initiative in 2005 to develop and test consensus-based, 

multi-agency, or “program-level” performance measures for TIM. TIM leaders from 

transportation and law enforcement organizations in 11 states reached consensus on 

three program-level TIM objectives and associated performance measures for their 

TIM teams:

Consensus-based, Program-level TIM Performance Measures Developed by Focus States

TIM Program 

Objectives

Reduce “Roadway” 

Clearance Time

Reduce “Incident” 

Clearance Time

Reduce the Number of 

Secondary Crashes

Time between first recordable awareness of incident by a responsible 

agency and first confirmation that all lanes are available for traffic flow.

Time between first recordable awareness of incident by a responsible 

agency and time at which the last responder has left the scene.

Number of unplanned crashes beginning with the time of detection 

of the primary incident where a collision occurs either a) within the 

incident scene or b) within the queue, including the opposite direction, 

resulting from the original incident.

Related Performance Measures

Bookmark the TIM Performance 

Measurement Knowledgebase 

http://www.ops.fhwa.dot.gov/eto_tim_

pse/preparedness/tim/knowledgebase/

index.htm

Subscribe to the TIM PM LISTSERV

TIMPM@dot.gov
TIM Performance Measures 

11 Focus States:

• California

• Connecticut

• Florida

• Georgia

• Maryland

• New York

• North Carolina

• Texas

• Utah

• Washington

• Wisconsin

Want to Know More?

Contact 

Paul Jodoin, 

FHWA TIM Program Manager

tel: 202-366-5465

email: paul.jodoin@dot.gov

or

Kimberly Vásconez, 

FHWA ETO Team Leader

tel: 202-366-1559

email: Kimberly.Vasconez@dot.gov

Visit the FHWA Office of Operations 

TIM Website at:

http://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/incidentmgmt/index.htm

Focus State TIM Performance Measurement 

Accomplishments

• Achieved landmark agreement on common definitions for three core TIM 

performance measures.

• Demonstrated that multi-agency data collection and fusion to improve TIM can 

be accomplished. 

• Demonstrated that by working together to measure TIM performance, 

transportation and law enforcement agencies were able to overcome institutional 

data sharing hurdles and improved their ability to quantify TIM benefits. 

• Helped agencies more effectively build support for their TIM program and win 

additional funding for TIM technical and resource needs by showing quantified 

TIM benefits.

Getting Started with TIM Performance Measurement

Getting started measuring program-level TIM has never been easier. The 

experiences and resources of the 11 focus states and others in the TIM community 

are a mouse-click away with the TIM Performance Measurement Knowledge 

Management System:

• Subscribe to the TIM Performance Measurement LISTSERV to share 

resources that may be helpful to others, and conveniently access the experiences 

and expertise of the focus states and your peers across the country for your 

questions. Send an email to TIMPM@dot.gov to subscribe.

• Visit the TIM Performance Measurement Knowledgebase to download 

helpful resources including sample MOUs, CAD-TMC integration strategies and 

requirements documents that have worked for others, as well as presentations, 

studies and reports that can help you build support in your region for TIM 

performance measurement. Search by keyword or browse by performance 

measure, conference/event (for presentations you’ve seen) or document type to 

find what you’re looking for. Bookmark the Knowledgebase: http://www.ops.fhwa.

dot.gov/eto_tim_pse/preparedness/tim/knowledgebase/index.htm

Steps to Success

• Recruit agency champions for program-level TIM Performance Measurement.

• Develop a plan, including a plan to exchange needed data between agencies.

• Test the performance measures with available data, manually at first if necessary.

• Identify and plan for any needed system modifications to support data sharing.

• Modify your plan as needed.

• Track your progress on the Road to Success!

Traffic Incident Management (TIM) Performance Measurement

FHWA – HOP-10-009