Regional TIM Committee Evolves

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KC Scout Manager Randy Johnson and Incident Management Coordinator Marcus Slaughter alongside with Amanda Horner of Mid-America Regional Council (MARC) have developed a Regional Traffic Incident Management (TIM) Committee.

This committee tackles traffic incident management at a regional level and aims to create effective bi-state, multi-agency participation in order to advance traffic incident management. 

Johnson says that the first step in creating this committee was to determine what the needs were in the local response community and the KC Scout/MARC Implementation team determined that those needs included:

  • Create a dialogue for better inter-agency exercising of coordination, communication, and cooperation.
  • Offer opportunities for inter-agency training and exercises that promote teamwork.
  • Create a tool or plan for developing common operational strategies.
  • Cultivate a better understanding of other agencies and their responsibilities via discussion and tours.
  • Establish best practices for the region and share resources such as AA tools and staff such as access to CCTV cameras, various equipment, etc.
  • Apply for grants as a committee.

“This is a joint effort between MARC and KC Scout. The team meets on a quarterly basis and its focus areas are safe scene operation, traffic management, and aggressive roadway clearance, all while developing relationships within the local response community," explains Horner.

This committee is made up a wide variety of emergency services including:

  • KC Scout
  • Operation Green Light
  • Lenexa, Olathe, Riverside, KCMO and KCK fire departments.
  • Missouri and Kansas State Highway Patrols
  • Jackson County Medical Examiner
  • Towing companies

"Another objective of this committee is to connect all of our non-first responder partners with traffic incident management. There are a lot of DOT staff and consultants that can help expedite traffic incident management concepts with their daily jobs,” says Johnson. 

"It would be extremely beneficial if all departments asked themselves how their work could make a difference to traffic incident management. Perhaps during the design phase, we could consider traffic systems management operations (TSMO) ideas to make roadways and work zones safer," says Slaughter.

This committee is a team effort that will make KC metro roadways safer for everyone by educating and sharing resources. The group is looking forward to advancing traffic incident management in 2022 and expanding its partnership and training to non-first responders

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