Review and Enhancement of CHART Operations to Maximize the Benefit of Incident Response and Management.

摘要

This project was focused on identifying potential areas for Marylands Coordinated Highway Action Response Team (CHART) to enhance its incident management efficiency and to maximize the resulting benefits under existing resource constraints. Using the information from CHART and the Maryland Accident Analysis Reporting System (MAARS), this research has identified critical factors affecting CHARTs efficiency in incident response and clearance, and produced several reliable models to improve its performance. This research has also produced an optimal allocation model that will enable each operational center to best deploy available patrol vehicles along its responsible highway networks and to select the most cost-benefit fleet size under the resource constraints. CHART can also apply the set of prediction models developed in this project to estimate the required clearance duration of a detected incident, thereby minimizing the resulting congestion within the impact boundaries via some real-time traffic control and information strategies. Incorporating any of those developed models into current practice will undoubtedly enhance CHARTs operational quality and significantly increase its effectiveness in minimizing non-recurrent congestion in this region.