Risk Analysis of Safety Service Patrol (SSP) Systems in Virginia

The transportation infrastructure is a vital backbone of any regional economy as it supports workforce mobility, tourism, and a host of socioeconomic activities. In this article, we specifically examine the incident management function of the transportation infrastructure. In many metropolitan regions, incident management is handled primarily by safety service patrols (SSPs), which monitor and resolve roadway incidents. In Virginia, SSP allocation across highway networks is based typically on average vehicle speeds and incident volumes. This article implements a probabilistic network model that partitions ‘business as usual’ traffic flow with extreme-event scenarios. Results of simulated network scenarios reveal that flexible SSP configurations can improve incident resolution times relative to predetermined SSP assignments.