Since the "Reach the Beach" program was initiated in the mid 1980s, the Maryland CHART (Coordinated Highways Action Response Team) incident management program has expanded to include almost 450 miles of freeway and major arterials around Baltimore, Annapolis, Frederick, and areas near Washington DC. Traveler information, traffic monitoring, and incident management operations have been maintained by a statewide operations center (SOC) and three satellite traffic operations centers (TOC).

This study evaluated CHART program performance in 1999 and 2000, and served as a follow-up study to the original CHART program evaluation in 1997. In 1999, CHART collected 34,891 incident reports. This data was compared to the similar categories of information collected on 27,987 incident reports in 2000.

The author noted that an ideal comprehensive evaluation of incident management efficiency should consider detection time, response time, and traffic condition recovery time, however, the results in this study were based on response time with limited data on clearance and recovery times since a real-time surveillance system was not available at the time of the evaluation.

RESULTS

In order to assess the contribution of CHART in terms of reducing incident clearance time, the study computed average incident duration with and without CHART. In 2000, the average incident duration was about 33 minutes with CHART and 77 minutes without it. In 1999, the average incident duration was about 42 minutes with CHART and 93 minutes without it.

The impact of CHART on delay reduction was estimated by modeling traffic activity on a number of freeway segments having similar geometry and peak-hour volumes. In 1999, the traffic model indicated CHART saved 23.36 million vehicle hours of delay. In 2000, the model estimated a savings of 24.24 million vehicle hours of delay which translated into approximately 4.1 million gallons of fuel.

In 1999, the Maryland DOT provided unit cost estimates of the following pollutants:

• Hydrocarbons at 13.073 grams per hour cost $6,700 per ton.
• Carbon monoxide at 146.831 grams per hour cost $6,360 per ton.
• Nitrogen Oxides at 6.261 grams per hour cost $12,875 per ton.

Based on these costs, CHART saved an estimated 25.7 million dollars in 1999, and 26.7 million dollars in 2000.

Notes

See also:

CHART Program Performance - 2002
CHART Program Performance - 1997