The Washington State Department of Transportation’s quarterly performance report- the Gray Notebook- says timely response to highway collisions by WSDOT crews, State Patrol and emergency personnel translated into an estimated $10.7 million in savings for highway travelers so far this year.
In the first quarter of 2012 alone, the Incident Response program saved travelers and businesses money by reducing the time and gas they would have wasted stuck in traffic, while at the same time increasing highway safety. WSDOT’s Incident Response Teams (IRT) cost an estimated $1.2 million to operate per quarter, reporting a benefit-to-cost ratio of approximately 9-to-1 for the first quarter of the year.
So how many incidents did IRT respond to? What is the average time it takes them to clear an incident? And how many IRT crews are there? Here’s your answers.