User-Friendly Benefit–Cost Estimation Tool for Traffic Incident Management Programs

Traffic incidents contribute significantly to deterioration in the level of service on freeways and arterials. Traffic incident management (TIM) programs have been introduced worldwide to mitigate the effects of traffic incidents on safety and roadway performance. These programs support quick incident response and thereby shorten incident duration, and control traffic demand around the incident scene. Some TIM programs can be costly to taxpayers. Thus, it is important to be able to evaluate benefits and determine associated returns on investment. Although benefit–cost (B/C) estimation studies have been conducted for numerous Safety Service Patrol programs, these studies use a wide range of estimation methods and monetary equivalent conversion factors. Consequently, the resulting B/C ratio estimates vary widely and have been shown to be sensitive to these choices. Moreover, these studies can be quite costly. Therefore, this paper is aimed at developing a user-friendly TIM-BC tool with a standardized method that can be universally and equitably used in such a B/C ratio estimation for TIM programs, essential to creating consistency and, therefore, greater confidence in the validity of estimation results. With access to the method in the form of a simple-to-use, less data-intensive tool, TIM programs and taxpayers alike can benefit from cost-effective evaluations. A New York State case study compared the effectiveness of implementing three selected TIM strategies, namely, Safety Service Patrol, driver removal laws, and dispatch colocation. The case study also helps in understanding the need for a standardized B/C ratio estimation tool and the effectiveness of the developed TIM-BC tool.