Evaluating Beat Structure and Truck Allocation for the Tarrant County, Texas, Courtesy Patrol

Abstract

Nonrecurring congestion poses a significant concern for drivers on urban freeways. Effective incident management relies on many tools to prevent the delays caused by crashes, road debris, and stalled or disabled vehicles. Many urban areas have adopted freeway service patrol (FSP) programs that search the freeway network for incidents, provide aid to motorists, and assist with incident management and clearance. FSP management must consider the patrols' beat structure and the fleet allocation. Both deterministic and probabilistic response time estimates for each beat are used to assess fleet allocations. The goal is to consider whether the urban network should be segmented into as many beats as possible, with individual trucks assigned to each beat, or whether additional trucks should be allocated to fewer beats. The Tarrant County, Texas, Courtesy Patrol (CP) is used as a case study to explore the truck allocation problem with field data. The Tarrant County CP typically uses a one-beat, two-beat, or three-beat configuration with a single truck allocated to each beat. The merits of a two-beat configuration are examined. The study indicates that the incident distribution must be considered during both beat and tour design.