Georgia’s Department of Transportation founded the Highway Emergency Response Operators (HERO) program about one year before the 1996 Olympics. Anticipating the rush of traffic, GDOT wanted to create a network to clear traffic incidents more quickly. Incidents create delays, which create more incidents – and so on.
The same premise is the reason the state deployed the Towing and Recovery Incentive Program (TRIP) in 2008. TRIP’s goal is to galvanize wrecker companies into clearing crashes with large vehicles, usually commercial tractor trailers, faster. If a wrecker clears an incident in a certain amount of time, they get a payment.
The incentive used to work in the other direction, GDOT incident management program manager Jason Josey said. He told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution some towing companies used to take their time clearing crashes because they got paid by the hour.
These types of incidents averaged more than 200 minutes to clear before 2008. The clearance time is now 30-40 minutes, on average, from the time the tow truck arrives. The stark decrease in time was not gradual, Josey said: “It changed overnight.”
The amount that wrecker companies receive from the state is small compared to what they would gain in billable hours, Josey explained. But they are eager to be a part of TRIP, “because they are awarded a stretch of road that belongs just to them.” Companies have the chance to bid on interstate stretches all over North Georgia every two years.
Not every tractor trailer or large vehicle crash gets a TRIP activation. If a big rig conks out and a HERO truck can tow it, no TRIP is needed.
But tractor trailers that overturn or ones that have their brakes locked – incidents that need a heavy duty wrecker – can trigger this incentive program. As to who makes the call on whether or not to TRIP an incident, Josey said HEROs or first responders make those.
Josey, who ran GDOT’s HERO program for years, said that responders call a specified number to spark a TRIP. That connects them with an operator in GDOT’s Traffic Management Center (TMC). That person then contacts the designated wrecker company for the particular stretch of road.
GDOT’s TMC is whom drivers contact when they dial 511 to report a traffic incident. TRIP is managed under the TIME (Traffic Incident Management Enhancement) Task Force. TIME tries to align various public organizations so they are communicating and sharing best practices.
Have we had enough traffic acronyms yet?
Josey and GDOT spokesperson Natalie Dale wanted to emphasize the importance of safety in this conversation, too. Regardless of the clearance time for a bad crash or the amount of delays it causes, the number one objective for crews working the scene is safety.
Drivers can clench their teeth and mash their accelerators when they finally get to the front of a big jam. But the front is where the responders and crash victims are, and they are in a vulnerable place when drivers light their tires up to squirt out of a bottleneck. The danger spikes even more when reckless travelers try to drive between cones or go perilously close to rescue units.
One last point from Josey: TIME Task Force’s efforts and the impact of TRIP are parts of the background gears of governance and operations to which the public gives little credit. Those forces have saved drivers thousands of hours over the years.
Those savings benefit more than the people stuck in the immediate backups. If one freeway is fully open again, then the delays lessen. Clogs on nearby alternative routes subside. Delays also breed wrecks, so decreasing those jams makes those road segments safer in those moments.
So the benefits of Georgia’s TRIP program, which has recently expanded to Macon, have a major ripple effect. They have for 16 years. And TIME’s efforts push to only go farther in bolstering clearance times and safety.
Doug Turnbull has covered Atlanta traffic for over 20 years and written “Gridlock Guy” since 2017. Contact him at fireballturnbull@gmail.com.
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