Regional Transportation Operations for SE Michigan -Coordinating Committee January 2017

Posted on Posted in ITS Michigan, Minutes

Date: January 6, 2017        Time: 9:00 AM

Meeting Held: Southeast Michigan Transportation Operations Center (SEMTOC), Detroit, Michigan

John Carrier from Carrier & Gable brought examples of high visibility vests, hard hats, and arm bands to show how LED lights can be incorporated into the items that might be worn in traffic to protect workers and responders. The LED lighting improves the visibility of those working in traffic and makes the high visibility clothing more effective. 

Freeway Operations Report

Dayo Akinyemi reported on freeway operations activities. MDOT is now preparing and distributing a Regional Weather Outlook bulletin. It provides a National Weather Hazardous Weather Outlook with anticipated future forecast.  It includes a SEMTOC Operations Report for Each County.  SEMTOC has changed Freeway Courtesy Patrol Routes to eliminate overlap in zones. The changes are based on experience with motorist assists.  The Freeway Operations Subcommittee will be reestablished to coordinate the activities of the various responders  The planned special events being coordinated include the Detroit International Auto Show, Winter Blast, and Hockey games. The Emergency Operations Center will begin operations this afternoon for the Charity Preview event part of the Auto Show.  Atwater Street will be closed for at least several days as part of the traffic planning for the Auto Show event.   MDOT will begin remote monitoring of pump stations along the Metro Detroit freeways to provide warning of water over the road.  MDOT has compiled a wrong way driver summary for 2016 on Metro Detroit freeways. There were 103 wrong way driver events on Detroit freeways in 2016 – 32% occurred on I-75, 18% occurred on I-94, and 16% occurred on M-10.  These events happen most frequently between the hours of 10 pm and 5 am.  Three of the events resulted in a fatality. The I-96/Evergreen location has been a hot spot for these incidents, but a missing sign has been replaced to address the issue. On the Ambassador Bridge, there are an average of four wrong way driver incidents each day.

Review of TIM Self-Assessment Comments and Recommended Blueprint for Action

Chris Williams reported that SEMCOG has drafted a plan for updating the regional concept for transportation operations (RCTO). The Transportation Operations Coordinating Committee will provide oversight of this update. Several stakeholder outreach meetings are being proposed to verify the RCTO vision/mission and goals, as well as identify new objectives. Other resources that will aid in this effort are the TIM self-assessment (areas where we scored low) and the capability maturity model assessments (MDOT Lansing Operations and MDOT SEMTOC). Once the update plan is finalized it will be presented to the Coordinating Committee. Meetings with stakeholders are planned for February and March of 2017.  The MDOT stakeholder meeting on this subject in late October 2016 indicated that funding and getting the information to high level stakeholders would be priority actions for this region.

12th Annual Southeast Michigan Transportation Operations Partnering Workshop

This workshop will be held March 3 at Suburban Collection Showcase – 46100 Grand River, Novi, Michigan 48374

The workshop will cover:

  • Network and share with best practices with southeast Michigan peers from state, county and local agencies
  • Review of Responder Roles in a Metro Detroit Traffic Incident
  • Expedited On-Scene Data Collection
  • Introduction to Connected Vehicle Technology
  • Applications and Implications of Connected Vehicles for First Responders

 

Statewide Traffic Incident Management Report

Dawn Miller from MDOT reported on statewide traffic incident management. She reported on the Traffic Incident Management Assessment Workshops held in Michigan between September 13 and October 24. The workshops were intended to capture what works and what we need to improve.  Grand Rapids and Detroit conducted self-assessments of their TIM programs, and this helped the discussions in those areas of the state.  To date more than 4500 responders have been trained in Michigan, and more traffic incident management training is scheduled for the next year.  An updated public survey on knowledge of traffic incident management will be scheduled. The Mi-TIME training to train first responders on traffic incident management has a goal of training 20% of all responders in the state.  The Traffic Safety Summit in Lansing at the end of March will include two sessions on traffic incident management. The traffic incident management portion of the Highway Safety Plan is being refined.  Work zone awareness week is scheduled for April 3-7, 2017.