Incident response - Incidents & clearance times
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Incident Response measures showing total incidents and clearance times
Incident response numbers and clearance times
WSDOT Incident Response personnel collect data for all incidents to which an IR team responds in the Washington Incident Tracking System. This data includes times of first awareness, arrival on scene, roadway clearance, and incident clearance which allows WSDOT to analyze various aspects of incident duration. IR teams also record other data such as how they were notified of the incident, incident cause and how many lanes of travel were blocked. Incidents are the total number of events that WSDOT Incident Response teams responded to, including incidents that were unable to be located. Incident clearance times are the average time between the first recordable awareness of the incident (detection, notification, or verification) and the time the last responder has left the scene. For details on the methodology used to calculate, see WSDOT's Handbook for Corridor Capacity Evaluation (PDF 5.9MB). To better show the effects of COVID-19 on the Incident Response program, quarterly data has been added to the dataset.
Source: Washington Incident Tracking System.
Note: The data above only accounts for incidents to which an IR unit responded.
Multi-year trends
The total number of incidents that the WSDOT IR teams responded to decreased by 28.4% from 59,803 incidents in 2018 to 42,814 incidents in 2022. The average clearance times during this five-year period ranged from 13 to 16 minutes. Since 2020, incident numbers are significantly lower compared to prior years, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Annual highlights
In 2022, IR teams responded to 42,814 incidents, which is 3.8% less than 44,497 incidents in 2021. The average incident clearance time in 2022 increased to 16.2 minutes.
In 2021, IR teams responded to 44,497 incidents, which is 0.6% less than 44,778 incidents in 2020. The average incident clearance time in 2021 increased to 16.0 minutes due to Incident Response team complying with COVID-19 safety protocols such as keeping 6-ft distance, wearing protective gear for the safety of the road users and the IR team members.
In 2020, IR teams responded to 44,778 incidents, which is 29.3% less than 63,404 incidents in 2019. The average incident clearance time in 2020 increased to 14.3 minutes due to Incident Response team complying with COVID-19 safety protocols such as keeping 6-ft distance, wearing protective gear for the safety of the road users and the IR team members.
In 2019, IR teams responded to 63,404 incidents, which is 6% more than 59,803 incidents in 2018. The average clearance time in 2018 and 2019 remained steady at 13 minutes.
In 2018, IR teams responded to 59,803 incidents, which is 3.4% fewer than 61,913 incidents in 2017. The average clearance time in 2018 was 13 minutes and 8 seconds.