Lesson
Plan diversion routes carefully to avoid negative consequences on designated alternate routes.
National experience with route diversion for incident management.
6/1/1998
United States
Background (Show)
Lesson Learned
Plan diversion routes carefully to avoid negative consequences.
Although concerns often arise over the impact of diverting traffic from major roadways onto surface streets, no test has yet demonstrated any substantial negative impact from such diversions. Projects that included planned diversions carefully prepared incident management solutions, such as San Antonio TransGuide's "scenarios" which were tailored to each potential incident type and location. Both DIVERT (St. Paul, MN) and TransGuide developed these solutions in consensus with agencies responsible for transportation throughout the affected area. This careful preparation has thus far prevented the floods of high-speed traffic through residential areas that were once feared.
Other key components of responsibly planning to prevent such negative impact have been:
Together, these and other measures have prevented situations that could have created a significant public outcry against the use of diversion routing as a component in incident management.
Although concerns often arise over the impact of diverting traffic from major roadways onto surface streets, no test has yet demonstrated any substantial negative impact from such diversions. Projects that included planned diversions carefully prepared incident management solutions, such as San Antonio TransGuide's "scenarios" which were tailored to each potential incident type and location. Both DIVERT (St. Paul, MN) and TransGuide developed these solutions in consensus with agencies responsible for transportation throughout the affected area. This careful preparation has thus far prevented the floods of high-speed traffic through residential areas that were once feared.
Other key components of responsibly planning to prevent such negative impact have been:
- Perform a careful traffic engineering analysis of the alternate route.
- Identify and implement improvements to the diversion route (such as signage, lane marking, and geometrics).
- Effectively coordinate of the diversion route’s traffic control system to accommodate the increased volume generated when it is in use as a diversion route.
Together, these and other measures have prevented situations that could have created a significant public outcry against the use of diversion routing as a component in incident management.
Lesson Categories
Management & Operations > Operations
Policy & Planning > Planning
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Systems Engineering
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Lesson ID: 2005-00029
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