Request for Proposals (RFP) for the Development of a Regional Incident Management Strategic Plan and Performance Assessment
Request for Proposals (RFP) for the Development of a Regional Incident Management Strategic Plan and Performance Assessment
RFP #: TRN 11-009
RFP for Regional Incident Management Strategic Plan & Performance Assessment Page 2
Currently, the Houston-Galveston area has two significant-sized freeway incident management programs in operation - SAFEClear, operated by the City of Houston within its city limits, and the Motorist Assistance Program (MAP), which is co-sponsored by the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County (METRO), the Harris County Sheriff's Department, and the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) and operates primarily within Beltway 8 in Harris County. Another MAP program operates out of Montgomery County on IH-45, but is significantly smaller than the afore-mentioned operations. All three of these operations strictly run off of local funding. An Incident Management Workgroup, consisting of law enforcement, engineers, the towing industry, and the medical community, meet on a monthly basis out of Houston TranStar to discuss best practices, specific incidents, and other issues that impact incident management.
In January 2011, H-GAC and METRO sponsored a 1.5-day traffic incident management (TIM) workshop/charrette, which was attended by 27 local and regional stakeholders and six invited experts from across the country. This gathering allowed practitioners and experts to discuss incident management practices, goals, and challenges in order to develop a path for strengthening and growing the region's incident management practices. One of the major action items to come out of this workshop was the development of a strategic plan that would assess the costs and benefits of current and proposed incident management practices, propose operational efficiencies, identify funding mechanisms, and market the program for public and political acceptance. To this end, H-GAC was tasked by this workgroup to develop a strategic plan, which is being addressed through this RFP.
OBJECTIVE
The objective of this RFP is to compile a list of qualified firms to conduct an assessment of the Houston-Galveston region's incident management efforts, identify the benefits of these efforts in reducing congestion and crashes, and develop a strategic plan for increasing the coverage of incident management efforts on critical facilities throughout the region. Respondents are requested to discuss their expertise in the areas listed below. The consultant will be required to have knowledge and expertise in many areas. Therefore, recommended criteria for the consultants on this project have been outlined.
INCIDENT MANAGEMENT STUDY AREA
The study area for this study will be the eight county TMA. The primary focus of the study involves freeway incident management within these counties, which include IH-10, IH-45, IH-610, US 59, US 290, SH 225, SH 249 and SH 288, as well as the Hardy, Westpark, Sam Houston, and Fort Bend Toll Roads.
