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 32.9% from 63,404 incidents in 2019 to 42,558 incidents in 2023
• Average clearance times between 2019 through 2023 ranged from 13 to 17 minutes

Economic benefit of IR program:

• The cost of incident-induced delay increased 7.7% from $265.8 million in 2019 to $286.2 million in 2023
• Economic benefits increased 6.3% from $117.6 million in 2019 to $125.0 million in 2023
• In 2020, both economic benefits and the cost of incident-induced delays decreased due to less traffic on the roads and fewer incidents because of COVID-19

Blocking and Extraordinary incidents:

• Between 2019 and 2023, the percentage of incidents that blocked the roadway ranged from 25.3% to 34.9%
• Between 2019 and 2023, the number of extraordinary incidents ranged from 28 to 46 annually of which, approximately one-third involved commercial vehicles such as semi-trucks