URS Report - Incident Management Study

7. Recommendations

7.1 Short Version

Recommendation 1 - Operational

Short term but potentially high profile initiatives should be reviewed with a view to implementation. These include enhanced location signing on featureless highways and permanent symbol signed diversion routes.

Recommendation 2 - Institutional

The Highways Agency should take on the key role of developing, negotiating, implementing and monitoring better incident management procedures.

Recommendation 3 - Monitoring

An incident database should be established, initially in trial areas. The concept of incident recording should then be rolled out to other areas or regions. Regional agreements on evaluation measures can then be developed from local incident data but co-ordinated at a national level.

Recommendation 4 - Organisational

A top-down review should be undertaken of such organisational factors as contractual arrangements, cross-organisational working practices, management practices and allocation of responsibilities at all levels. This review to include a proper assessment of the possibilities of using non-police management of some incidents or elements of incidents including accident investigation.

Recommendation 5 - Guidelines and Planning Support

The lead body, jointly with ACPO, should develop the output from this study (with other stakeholders where appropriate) to produce an agreed 'National Guidance Framework' (NGF) for the top level 'good practice' incident management culture, procedures and processes.

Recommendation 6 - Guidelines and Planning Support

Thereafter the NGF to inform all service providers within a region which, whilst reflecting the tenets of the NGF, enables unique Detailed Local Operating Agreements (DLOAs) to meet the topographical, institutional and infrastructural needs of the area.

Recommendation 7 - Training

Linked with Recommendations 5 and 6, a pool of training and development materials should be prepared, cross-organisational training values and priorities developed and other training models related to management of safety critical systems reviewed.

Recommendation 8 - Technological

Longer term technological initiatives which can assist incident management should be critically reviewed. These include improvements in communication systems, camera equipment, GIS/GPS and transfer of CCTV images to other emergency services and clear-up contractors.

7.2 Long Version

Operational

Recommendation 1: A number of potential improvements were identified from the workshops and experiences elsewhere. Some are relatively short term but potentially high profile initiatives to aid incident management such as enhanced location signing on featureless highways, permanent symbol signed diversion routes etc. Others are longer term and a full listing of ideas and suggestions is contained in Section 3.4 of the main report.

Institutional

There needs to be a lead body/agency from amongst the stakeholders responsible and accountable for taking forward, encouraging, enabling and funding initiatives regarding Incident management. Some acceptance in terms of responsibility for overall incident management monitoring is first required and this may necessitate the creation and funding of a senior co-ordinating role in the organisational structure of the Highways Agency. This role should be interfaced with area or sub regionally based incident managers who would have responsibility for implementation of new operational procedures and best practice guidance. Although a multitude of organisations are involved in incident clearance, the only one that has congestion monitoring as one of its key performance indicators is the Highways Agency.

Recommendation 2: The Highways Agency should take on the key role in developing, negotiating, implementing and monitoring better incident management procedures.

Monitoring

We do not have enough up-to-date data on incident clearance to inform decisions on clearance targets. Establishing a good database of clearance information by area/corridor is essential both to inform decisions about targets and to properly evaluate the impact of new technologies, organisational arrangements and operational improvement.

Recommendation 3: An incident database should be established, initially in trial areas. This/these area/s should comprise motorways with good CCTV coverage (e.g. West Midlands, M25, M1) and dual carriageways without CCTV coverage. The following information should be recorded:

• First point of contact to the control centre (control room - police records).
• Response to incident - arrival of police to the scene (CCTV, police records, HA records).
• Point at which incident is cleared (CCTV, police records, HA records).
• Return to 'normal' traffic flow (difficult to identify and may come from CCTV data).

The purpose of the trial would be to establish better reporting techniques, to develop roles in the reporting of events and the working through of definitional problems that are not insurmountable. The concept of incident recording should then be rolled out to other areas or regions. Regional agreements on evaluation measures can then be developed from local incident data, but coordinated at a national level.

Organisational

Regulatory, investigative and enforcement powers and duties are currently vested in the police and are essential in terms of underpinning incident management. Most are not suitable for transfer to other bodies but the Home Office's 'Police Reform' programme may present opportunities for a limited transfer to accredited organisations/wardens engaged by HA which may assist with incident management.

Recommendation 4: A basic top down review should be undertaken of such organisational factors as contractual arrangements, cross organisational working practices, management practices, allocation of responsibilities at all levels (including who exactly is responsible for incident clearance). This audit will provide a classification of organisational problems; an indication of how issues have a marked impact on incident management/clearance; and how they might be resolved in a sensible and economic manner. This audit should be used to create compact and usable checklists that can be used by all stakeholders ranging from those who commission and control activities to operators, as an aide memoir and development aid. The checklist should be used as the basis of periodic review and audit of quality systems. Some linkage should be made between existing quality procedures (defined in the broadest sense) in the stakeholder organisations. The importance of valuing the work undertaken by those who undertake incident work should be addressed by those responsible for its management. The review to include a proper assessment of the possibilities of using non-police management of some incidents or elements of incidents.

Guidelines and Planning Support

Requirements for being successful in incident clearance vary across regions, organisations and contexts. It would be the task of local managers to put into place systems that are responsive to local conditions and resistant to error and erosion of operational performance. Operational and planning management can be helped in this task by being guided by a framework that informs, generates eclectic and parsimonious analysis and elicits non-prescriptive evidence about how particular issues have been considered and dealt with.

Recommendation 5: Following on from recommendation 4, and over a slightly longer timescale, the lead body, jointly with ACPO, ought to develop the output from this study (with other stakeholders where appropriate) to produce an agreed 'National Guidance Framework' (NGF) for the top level best practice incident management culture, procedures and processes.

Recommendation 6: Thereafter the NGF to inform all service providers within a region which, whilst reflecting the tenets of the NGF, enables unique Detailed Local Operating Agreements (DLOAs) to meet the topographical, institutional and infrastructural needs of the area. More specifically, the NGF (and subsequent DLOAs) need to address the following:

• Institutional and contractual issues
• Management/ownership of the subject
• Cultural/training/awareness issues
• HR - roles and responsibilities etc
• Infrastructure
• Control Room equipment
• Post incident assessment / review
• Measurement against a process model.

Training

This is a key issue. The skills and competencies that lead to good clearance performance are the same as those that lead to good incident management. Furthermore the skills competencies and knowledge used when managing incidents are those that already exist at the start of the incident. They cannot be changed once things occur. This obvious factor highlights the need for prior consideration of this issue.

Recommendation 7: Linked with Recommendations 5 and 6, a pool of training and development materials should be prepared highlighting the key issues and a series of generic competencies derived from the task analysis conducted on this study, aimed at trainers, managers and operational staff. Given current trends a training resource aimed at non-traffic police officers might prove useful. These learning resources should be multifaceted and aimed not just at the police service but at the other emergency services, civilian contractors and other stakeholders (e.g. phone company control rooms). In other words, anyone who has some operational involvement with management/clearance. Second, in the medium term, cross-organisational training values and priorities should be developed, raising the priority of incident clearance in all stake holder organisations, developing a set of key competencies in incident clearance that can be developed across different organisations and developing good co-operative working practice at all levels.

Finally, in the long term, training models from the military and the management of safety critical systems for aviation, power generation and process control should be reviewed, culled and customised for cost-effective training, leading to a coherent UK model of training. This should be a concise template for practical use not a large conceptual document.

New Technology

Recommendation 8: A number of potential technological improvements were identified from the workshops and from experiences elsewhere. Some of these may however already have been considered and discounted or still subject to evaluation and a full listing is contained in Section 3.4 of the main report:

• Using radio or mobile telephones, some form of incident communications net be established that allows those responsible for managing the incident to communicate directly and without difficulty without going through multiple third parties.
• All traffic units or other selected units carry an easy to use high quality camera equipment with characteristics/equipment that facilitate the accurate gauging of size and distance.
• Some means of gathering statements rapidly. This is a very time consuming activity.
• Use of web-cams at the scene distributing information to all of the control rooms for all services to enable a better judgement of resource requirements.
• Use of scanning equipment as an aid to accident investigation (under review by TRL).
• Variable lane closure systems.
• Vehicle detection systems.

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