Incident response

Incident response (IR)

Incident Response (IR) is WSDOT's traffic incident management program with a mission to clear roads and help drivers. The program collaborates with other agencies such as the Washington State Patrol to achieve this goal and is instrumental in helping the transportation system operate efficiently.

WSDOT's Incident Response program clears traffic incidents safely and quickly, minimizing congestion and the risk of secondary incidents. The statewide program has a biennial budget of $12 million that supports 86 IRT employees (which includes backup drivers) and 69 dedicated IRT vehicles. Teams are on-call 24/7 and actively patrol approximately 1,300 centerline miles (3,400 lane miles) of highway on major corridors throughout the state during peak traffic hours. As a result, the program is able to serve travelers on approximately 18% of all state-owned centerline miles statewide.

Multi-year trends

Incident responded numbers:

• The number of annual incidents WSDOT IR teams responded to decreased 3.6% from 44,778 incidents in 2020 to 43,181 incidents in 2024
• Average clearance times between 2020 through 2024 ranged from 14 to 17 minutes

Economic benefit of IR program:

• The cost of incident-induced delay increased 37.1% from $211.8 million in 2020 to $308.4 million in 2024
• Economic benefits increased 36.0% from $93.3 million in 2020 to $134.3 million in 2024

Blocking and Extraordinary incidents:

• Between 2020 and 2024, the percentage of incidents that blocked the roadway ranged from 29.1% to 36.4%. Incident with blocking the roadway increased 7.3 percentage points.
• Between 2020 and 2024, the number of extraordinary incidents ranged from 28 to 56 annually of which, approximately one-third involved commercial vehicles such as semi-trucks