TIMSA Supporting Statement clean

Supporting Statement A

OMB Control. No. 2125-0650

Traffic Incident Management Capability

Introduction:

The purpose of the Traffic Incident Management Self-Assessment (TIMSA) is to provide a formal process for State and local transportation, public safety, and private sector partners to collaboratively assess their traffic incident management programs and identify opportunities for improvement. The TIMSA is now available year-round.

Part A. Justification.

1. Circumstances that make collection of information necessary:

Each of the over 6 million crashes per year presents a safety danger to motorists and responders while causing delays on the nation’s roads. Many other incidents such as roadway debris or stalled vehicles are far more frequent and further degrade traveler safety and travel reliability. Safe, quick clearance of all roadway incidents, including crashes, is vital to the national economy and directly affects travel reliability, operations resiliency, and road user safety. Over 100 Traffic Incident Management (TIM) Programs have been established both in metropolitan and rural regions throughout our Nation to improve the efficiency and safety of traffic incident response. TIM Program are typically coordinated through a multi-disciplinary committee comprised of incident response disciplines such as law enforcement, fire and rescue, emergency medical services, public works, towing and transportation.

The TIMSA questionnaire was established to help regions assess their level of TIM Program maturity and to identify opportunities for improvement in order reduce the adverse impacts of roadway incidents while improving program efficiencies. The multidisciplinary committees can use the TIMSA questionnaire data entry as a mechanism to discuss and define strategic and tactical actions to improve incident response in their region.

The TIMSA advances the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) strategic Safety goals of safety by helping regions identify targeted enhancements to their TIM Programs that will reduce secondary crashes and responder struck by crashes. The TIMSA also advances the U.S. DOT strategic “Economic Growth,” and “Mobility” goals because improvements in TIM Programs result in quicker incident clearance and consequently more reliable travel. The practice of efficient TIM means all incident response communities have more time and resources to address other regional safety needs. And the TIMSA advances the U.S. DOT strategic goal of “Natural Environment,” by helping regions improve the efficiency of traffic incident response, which means lesser congestion, lesser greenhouse gasses, and improved air quality.

2. How, by whom, and for what purpose is the information used:

Participants access an online questionnaire of approximately 40 questions reflecting good strategic and tactical practices to help regions evaluate their TIM Program maturity level and identify approaches to improve safety and efficiency of roadway incidents.

State DOT, law enforcement, fire and rescue, emergency medical service, towing and recovery, as well as other responders in the region participate in reviewing and answering TIMSA questions. The information is used by these TIM stakeholders to better understand their capability level and identify opportunities for reducing roadway clearance times and secondary crashes and thereby improving safety and mobility in the region. During the questionnaire completion process, they may collaboratively formulate collective and individual priorities for TIM Program enhancements. Once a region completes their TIMSA, the TIMSA system will also auto-generate strategies that the region may consider in order to advance their capability maturity level based on their responses.

FHWA also uses the data to assess national progress in TIM program capability maturity, to target outreach focus (webinars and newsletters), and to identify programs and projects that may help advance safety and mobility among regions completing the questionnaire. Often the variance in regions completing the questionnaire from year to year also signals potential challenges or shifts in program maturity and strength, an indicator for a potential need for support.

3. Extent of automated information collection:

An online tool is used to enter and collect the response to questions. Every effort has been made to reduce the level of effort to complete the questionnaire. The online tool allows as many revisits.

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4. Efforts to identify duplication:

Similar information is not available.

5. Efforts to minimize the burden on small businesses:

This information collection does not impose a burden on small businesses.

6. Impact of less frequent collection of information:

The current annual completion of the TIMSA aligns with good practices in TIM program assessments and goal setting. Less than annual collection will reduce the ability for participating regions to focus on continuous improvement and the trade-off analyses and collaboration among the diverse TIM stakeholders that is fostered by use of the TIMSA.

7. Special circumstances:

There are no special circumstances associated with this information collection.

8. Compliance with 5 CFR 1320.8:

The FHWA published on October 20, 2023, a 60-day Federal Register notice (88 FR 64971), which solicited public comments on the FHWA’s intention to request renewal of this information collection. No comments were received from the public to the docket.

9. Payments or gifts to respondents:

Respondents are not provided with any payment or gift for this information.

10. Assurance of confidentiality:

Not applicable.

11. Justification for collection of sensitive information:

No sensitive information is collected.

12. Estimate of burden hours for information requested:

While the number of regions completing the TIMSA has varied between 75 and 100, we estimate 100 responses annually, with data entry time at 3 hours per questionnaire. For approximately 40% of the region, the FHWA Division staff complete the TIMSA data entry, leaving 60 regional TIM Program staff to complete the questionnaire. Assuming a $75 per hour average wage rate, the annual cost for the TIMSA questionnaire data entry is $13,500 (60 x $75 x 3).

	Local Public Agencies and other
Average Wage Rate (incl. benefits)	$75/hour
Hours	180
Total (National)	$13,500

13. Estimate of total annual costs to respondents:

There are no additional costs other than the hourly costs identified in question #12 above

14. Estimate of cost to the Federal government:

$120,000 is the estimated cost to the Federal Government. The contract to support implementation of the survey is $106,097.24 and was rounded up to $120,000 to support the increase in the future years.

15. Explanation of program changes or adjustments:

There are no changes or adjustments.

16. Publication of results of data collection:

Final results with national averages are planned to be published annually.

17. Approval for not displaying the expiration date of OMB approval:

Approval for not displaying the expiration date is not being requested.

18. Exceptions to certification statement:

No exceptions to the certification statement are being requested.