Planning effective incident management program

 PLANNING EFFECTIVE INCIDENT MANAGEMENT PROGRAM

The goal of an incident management system is not to create a response, but rather to create a more effective response for all responding agencies

 The difference between an incidence response and an effective incident management lies in the incident response which is carried out in every area covered by every form of emergency management.

However, effective incident management carries out a detailed degree of coordination, planning and conscious effort implied by effective incident management.

An effective approach to developing an incident management program involves the following steps:

• Identification of relevant stakeholders
• Kick-off meeting to introduce the concepts and benefits of incident management
• Public outreach
• The basic eight (8) step incident management program involves:
• Defining the problem
• Setting goals and objectives
• Developing alternatives
• Evaluating alternatives
• Selecting alternatives
• Implementing alternatives
• Reevaluating alternatives and
• Refining the system

Elements of a successful incident management program

• People
• Incident response teams (IRTs) deliver actual incident management services in the field.
• IRTs are interdisciplinary teams participating from each responding agency (Eg: Fire, Police, Emergency Management Services, Transport department, etc)
• The following agencies and service providers may be part of the IRTs
• Ambulance services
• Towing and recovery
• Toxic material control
• Emergency services, etc

Training

• Multi-agency training is fundamental in maintaining and improving incident management program quality. 
• The importance of proper training cannot be underestimated in light of the litigious nature of today's society.

Field guides

• Formal training programs provide the knowledge and skill base that Incident Response Team (IRT) members need to perform their jobs effectively. This is supplemented with written (or electronic) field guides.
• Resource guides, like other aspects of incident management programs, are tailored to the nature, scope and resources of each area’s program.
• Response guides are different from policy guides in the sense that policy guide focuses on administrative and theoretical aspects of incident management and are based on laws and statutes
• Response guides or field guides provide the team members with nuts and bolts of information needed, contact lists and the actions to be performed. They are often required to work in harsh and demanding conditions.
• Incident response guide covers:
• Introduction to incident management
• Incident response vehicle
• Equipment and materials
• Step-by-Step incident response features for ALL features
• Communications (OSCCR - On Scene Command and Communication Radio network) for use by dissimilar agencies at an incident scene

Following are the elements of a successful incident management program:

• Infrastructural and Operational Strategies
• Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS)
• provides a complementary means to maximise efficiency and safety of transportation infrastructure
• ITS covers a range of advanced computer and telecommunications technologies that allow monitoring, control and respond to transportation system in sophisticated ways
• ITS is particularly relevant to incident management. It provides the greatest benefit of many IT technologies.
  

Detection and verification

• Surveillance technologies help in traffic monitoring and data collection.
• Data collected includes:
• Vehicle volume
• Vehicle speeds
• Occupancy and
• Traffic density

• The various types of automated surveillance are:
• Inductive loop detectors
• Magnetometer detection
• Microwave radar detection
• Infrared detection
• Ultrasonic detection
• Video image processing
• Closed Circuit Television (CCTV)
• Video probes
• Automatic vehicle identification
• Automatic vehicle location

• Incident detection algorithms
• Traffic surveillance methods are translated into incident detection data
• Several incident detection algorithms are used to allow computer systems in traffic operation centers to alert operators of the possibility of an incident in the road network
• Incident detection algorithms are divided into:
• Pattern recognition algorithms
• Statistical algorithms
• Time-series algorithms and
  
• Modeling algorithms