Optimal Deployment Strategies of Freeway Service Patrols for Incident Management

Contracting Agency: Southeastern Transportation Center, University of Tennessee

PI: Yafeng Yin, Ph.D.

As one component of traffic incident management systems, freeway service patrols (FSP) facilitates quick removal of incidents through faster response and reduced clearance time. This project attempts to develop an integrated model to provide a full spectrum of support for the FSP deployment decision making. Through a better patrol beat design and fleet allocation, the model will minimize the response times of patrolling trucks to incidents and optimize the system performance against high-consequence scenarios of incident occurrence. The model shall be readily applicable to the practices of state departments of transportation for initializing or renewing existing FSP contracts.