SE Michigan Regional Transportation Operations – April 2017

Posted on Posted in ITS Michigan, Minutes

 

MEETING MINUTES SOUTHEAST MICHIGAN REGIONAL TRANSPORTATION OPERATIONS COORDINATING COMMITTEE

Date: April 13, 2017           Time: 9:00 AM       Meeting Held: Southeast Michigan Transportation Operations Center (SEMTOC), Detroit, Michigan

Freeway Operations Report

Mia Silver reported on freeway operations activities. MDOT is now preparing and distributing a Regional Weather Outlook bulletin. MDOT has arranged for some members of the media to ride along with the Courtesy Patrol drivers.  This should increase the visibility of this cost- effective program for the public.  MDOT will be making connected vehicle data from the Data Used Analysis Program available to more users. Road Weather Information will be available for the I-94 Corridor.  Mi-Time training will be provided for South Wayne County on May 5.  The planned special events being coordinated included the Detroit Tigers Opening Day event. The Emergency Operations Center helped to provide combined operations for the event. More traffic signals in the area have timing plans for special events.  The Q-line is scheduled to begin operations on May 12.  A work zone safety press conference was scheduled. Michigan State Police will be more visible in work zones during the coming construction season.

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

In 2007 SEMCOG, in collaboration and coordination with transportation service providers, public safety agencies and stakeholders in southeast Michigan developed a regional concept for transportation operations (RCTO). The effort set a vision and mission for guiding coordination and collaboration among transportation agencies, emergency services, and the media to improve regional operations.  The concept of operations will be updated in 2017 to continue initiatives and efforts outlined in the previous RCTO and identify any shifted regional priorities or needs.  The projects and initiatives identified in the update should be projects that can be implemented within 3-5 years.  The top objectives to be accomplished from the 2007 RCTO to improve transportation operations in Metro Detroit were:

1.Identify priority corridors for future investment

2.Retime traffic signals regularly

3.Clear incidents quickly and safely

4. Disseminate transportation operations information

Chris Williams reported that SEMCOG has drafted a plan for updating the regional concept for transportation operations (RCTO). The Transportation Operations Coordinating Committee will likely 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

Macomb County Integrated Corridor Management Performance

Ken Yang and Chase Chen described how integrated corridor management is used to reroute traffic around an incident scene along I-696 between Dequindre and Gratiot. Integrated Corridor Management encompasses traffic incident management, arterial management, traveler information, and transit management.  For the area along I-696, the traffic control devices used include arrow signs, dynamic arrow signs, and dynamic message signs.  The incident used to test the system was a vehicle fire blocking three lanes.  To address this incident, a signal timing plan that favored east-west movements instead of north-south movements on Dequindre.  A 160 second cycle length was used instead of the normal 120 second cycle length.  The performance measures used were speeds and travel times.  The revised timing plan resulted in more delay for northbound Dequindre, but traffic diverted from I-696 was addressed with the longer cycle length and adjusted signal splits.

12th Annual Southeast Michigan Transportation Operations Partnering Workshop

On March 3rd, 2017, approximately 120 members from across the traffic incident management (TIM) community gathered for the 12th annual Southeast Michigan Traffic Incident Management Partnering Workshop at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi, Michigan.  The event was organized by Beaubien Engineering, the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT), the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments and the Transportation Improvement Association of Michigan, and sponsored by Opticom and ITS Michigan.  Participants in the workshop ranged from professionals in police, fire, emergency medical services, public safety answering points, towing companies, freeway service patrol operators, and road agencies from the state, county and municipal levels. And for the first time ever, the audience included representatives from several automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and suppliers and Patrick Son, Managing Director of the National Operations Center of Excellence (NOCoE).

The half-day workshop was opened with welcoming remarks from Dave Staudt, Mayor Pro Tem of the City of Novi, a former police official himself, and a keynote address from Lt. Colonel Richard Arnold of the Michigan State Police (MSP), who painted an exciting picture for the audience of what the world and traffic incident management could look like in the future with connected and autonomous vehicle technology.  His remarks set the stage for the workshop agenda that walked participants though a series of presentations on “TIM Today”, “TIM Tomorrow” and “TIM in the Future”.

Oladayo “Dayo” Akinyemi, MDOT’s Southeast Michigan Transportation Operations Center (SEMTOC) Manager, Reginald Washington, a Maintenance Coordinator and First Responder for MDOT in Wayne County, and Lt. Michael Shaw, of the MSP addressed some the current challenges and advancements in “TIM Today”.  Their presentations included recent efforts to mitigate and respond to weather related events, especially flooding on freeways through improved weather data collection and sharing at SEMTOC, monitoring of the regions 136 pump stations that help remove water from low spots along the freeway system, and increased efforts to proactively identify trouble spots and remove debris before it clogs drainage systems.  They also led a discussion on recent initiatives to combat wrong way drivers on the freeway system, including a review of videos of several incidents and how they are now being handled more effectively than ever before.  They wrapped up this session with an after-action look at one of the area’s high crash locations and some strategies being pursued to reduce both primary and secondary crashes.

Transitioning to a discussion of “TIM Tomorrow”, the workshop participants heard a presentation from Kymberly Pashkowsky, a firefighter and instructor from Algoma Township Fire Department, on the latest technology for expedited extraction of injured crash victims. Kymberly discussed an overview of IC, Incident Command starting with S.M.A.R.T Objectives to evaluate the scene quickly and efficiently in order to make time efficient decisions while touching on the command priorities of each scene. An Overall picture was displayed of how an Traffic Incident Management scene is laid out with each component of Fire, Police, EMS and Towing with the goals of the “Golden hour” and “Platinum ten” as reminders to all on the need for excellent patient care and quick Traffic Incident Management clearing.  Kymberly went into the latest technology of Vehicle extrication with Fire Department engagement goals of how to approach each vehicle while creating the inner and outer circle with scene stabilization.  Kymberly’s presentation led into discussion the efforts of the Grand Rapids Fire Department, 131 Expedited Towing program including statistics of the last 2 years of creating a relationship and improving communication with the local towing departments to clear highways up to twenty minuets faster with less backup in the Queue.

Then Craig Shackelford, Crash Investigator for the International Center for Automotive Medicine (ICAM) at the University of Michigan, spoke to new technology and approaches that could drastically improve the quality and reduce the time needed for crash investigations and reconstruction work. Craig built upon other presentations calling for the need to have more inter-professional collaborations to improve response to serious roadway incidents involving injuries.  He offered a personal reflection about several decades of technical investigations of serious motor vehicle crashes and the need to constantly build competencies.  As a Crash Investigator/Research Analysist for the International Center for Automotive Medicine/ University of Michigan he offered a unique learning opportunity for first responders to learn leading edge methods of sizing up incidents.

The workshop then moved to a discussion about “TIM in the Future” with the advancement of connected and autonomous vehicles (CV/AV). Michele Mueller, MDOT’s Connected Vehicle Manager in Southeast Michigan, provided an overview of the latest developments and applications being pursued by transportation agencies and the automotive sector.  She also highlighted the Planet M™ initiative, an initiative to pull together all the work in Michigan on the future of mobility, from technology research and deployments to talent recruitment and development, under one brand.  Patrick Son shared remarks regarding specific CV/AV applications that would benefit incident response which are being discussed nationally, and then shared a NOCoE video of several of these applications which were demonstrated in 2016 at an event sponsored by ITS Pennsylvania.

The session concluded with a group workshop exercise, where TIM professionals and auto industry representatives explored and discussed how CV/AV technology and applications could improve TIM in the future. A summary of the participants’ ideas will be prepared so members of both the TIM community and the automotive sector could continue to advance their partnership and develop applications with the greatest potential to save the lives of motorists and incident responders alike.  A special “thank you” to the sponsors and partners who made this year’s Southeast Michigan TIM Workshop a success, and to Patrick Son for joining us and expanding this important discussion through the NOCoE.

Statewide Traffic Incident Management Report

Dawn Miller from MDOT reported on statewide traffic incident management. MDOT is investigating how well the public understands the “Seer it, clear it” law and the “Move over” law. To date more than 5400 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 included two sessions on traffic incident management. One covered communication and coordination in Mackinac County.  The second provided a samples of techniques used in Grand Rapids and the North Region along with presentations from Move Over Michigan and HAAS Alert of emergency vehicles coming.  The traffic incident management portion of the Highway Safety Plan is being refined.