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Highlighted Studies

A listing of studies and evaluations of Safety Service Patrols, including state specific and national studies.

Federal Highway Administration Handbooks


Federal Highway Administration Service Patrol Handbook

Written by Nancy Houston Craig Baldwin; Andrea Van Easton; Steve Cyra, P.E.; P.T.O.E.; Marc Hustad, P.E.; and Katie Belmore, EIT

Sponsored by Federal Highway Administration, HOTO-1 U.S. Department of Transportation

This Handbook provides an overview of the Full-Function Service Patrol (FFSP) and describes desired program characteristics from the viewpoint of an agency that is responsible for funding, managing, and operating the services. The primary audience for the Handbook comprises State DOTs… Read More


Federal Highway Administration Field Operations Guide for Safety/Service Patrols

Written by John Sparks, Jessica Shuh and Arland T. Smith; Performing Organization: Delcan Corporation

Sponsored by Federal Highway Administration

FHWA produced this guide for use by Safety/Service Patrol operators and supervisors. It is expected that Safety/Service Patrol personnel will carry the guide in their vehicle to use as a quick reference while performing patrol tasks… Read More



Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)


Emergency Vehicle Visibility and Conspicuity Study

Produced by the U.S. Fire Administration and the International Fire Service Training Association

This report analyzes emergency vehicle visibility and conspicuity with an eye toward expanding efforts in these areas to improve vehicle and roadway operations safety for all emergency responders… Read More



 Evaluations of Safety Service Patrols and Industry Guidelines


Mn/DOT Emergency Lighting Field Evaluation

Written by John McClellan, Minnesota DOT RTMC Freeway Operations Supervisor

The purpose of this paper is to summarize the observations and recommendations made at the Mn/DOT Emergency Lighting Evaluation conducted on June 19th, 2006 at the MN State Fair grounds Midway area… Read More


Overview of Freeway Service Patrols in the United States

Written by Malcolm E. Baird; Sponsored by the Southeastern Transportation Center and the School of Engineering, Vanderbilt University

This report provides an overview of the freeway service patrols (FSPs) in the U.S., including information about organizations and resources, operating practices, vehicles and equipment, and the types and levels of services offered… Read More


Incident Clearance Report

Written by Indu Sreedevi and Rosella Picado

An evaluation of the most visible components of an incident clearance program, the service patrol. Service patrols around the country are assessed based on benefits and costs. Read More


ITS Impacts on Safety and Traffic Management: An Investigation of Secondary Crash Causes

Written by Matthew G. Karlaftis, Steven P. Latoski, Nadine J. Richards and Kumares C. Sinha

Freeway service patrols, an increasingly popular choice in combating the effects of traffic incidents on freeway operations, have been known to reduce incident response and clearance time. This reduction can… Read More


Optimal Fleet Allocation of Freeway Service Patrols

Written by Yafeng Yin

As one component of traffic incident management systems, freeway service patrols (FSP) facilitate quick removal of incidents through faster response and reduced clearance time. This paper is to investigate how to allocate tow trucks among patrol beats to maximize the effectiveness of the FSP services… Read More


Baseline Evaluation of the Freeway Service Patrol (FSP) I-710 Big-Rig Demonstration Program

Written by Michael Mauch, Soyoung Ahn, Koohung Chung and Alexander Skabardonis; Produced by Institute of Transportation Studies at University of California Berkeley

A two-year demonstration project has been proposed to extend FSP service to big-rigs and other heavy vehicles on I-710 freeway. The report describes the workperformed and the findings from the preliminary evaluation of the proposed I-710 Big-Rig FSP demonstration project… Read More


Hampton Roads Freeway Incident Response Team (FIRT) Impact Study

Produced by Virginia Department of Transportation and Smart Traffic Center: Hampton Roads

The primary objective of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of the Freeway Incident Response Team (FIRT) in the Hampton Roads Virginia area (Norfolk-Newport News-Virginia Beach)… Read More


Assessing the Return on Investment of Freeway Safety Service Patrol Programs

Written by Lance E. Dougald and Michael J. Demetsky

The purpose of this project was to develop methods using Virginia data to evaluate and quantify the benefits of SSP programs…. Read More


Evaluation of the Freeway Service Patrol (FSP) in Los Angeles

Written by Alexandar Skabardonis, Karl Petty, Pravin Varaiya and Robert Bertini; Published by UC Berkley, Research Reports, California PATH Institue of Transportation Studies

This report represents the results of a study designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the freeway service patrols on s section of I-10 in Los Angeles… Read More


The Freeway Service Patrol Evaluation Project: Database, Support Programs and Accessibility

Written by Karl Petty, Hisham Noeimi, Kumud Sanwal, Dan Rydzewski, Alexander Skabardonis and Pravin Varaiya; Published by California PATH Program, University of California, Berkley, and Haitham Al-Deek, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Central Florida

This paper discusses the Freeway Service Patrol (FSP) Evaluation Project conducted under the California PATH program. The goal of this project was to determine the cost effectiveness of the FSP program along a ten-mile “beat” on I-880, near Hayward, California… Read More


The Role of Smart Traffic Centers in Regional System Operations: A Hampton Roads Case Study

Written by J. Adam Pegues and Michael J. Demetsky; Performing Organization Virginia Transportation Research Council

The objectives of this study were to define the role of smart traffic centers (STCs) in regional systems operations and to help identify performance measures for monitoring the performance of STCs in the scope of regional systems operations… Read More


Performance Analysis of Virginia’s Safety Service Patrol Programs: A Case Study Approach

Written by Lance E. Dougald and Michael J. Demetsky; Performing Organization Virginia Transportation Research Council

Although estimates of the benefits of these programs have been quantified in other areas of the United States, the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) does not have a documented methodology for quantifying the benefits of its SSP programs. This study sought to develop such a methodology… Read More


Evaluation of the Service Patrol Program in the Puget Sound Region

Written by Jennifer Nee and Mark E. Hallenbeck; Prepared for Washington State Transportation Commission in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Transportation

The evaluation examines how the similarities and differences among the different service delivery modes (e.g., the intensity of deployment, equipment choices, service delivery, costs) affect the impact of the Service Patrol operation on traffic conditions (e.g., reductions in delay) and the level of motorist satisfaction… Read More


An Economic Evaluation of Freeway Service Patrols

Written by David Levinson and Pavithra Kandadai Parthasarathi

The objective of this study was to investigate the factors that contribute to people choosing to rely on the highway assistance services (FSP) in comparison to private assistance services such as the Automobile Association of America (AAA). Further the effectiveness of the Freeway Service Patrol was studied by carrying out a Benefit-Cost Analysis using Los Angeles as a test case. Read More



Industry References


How to Use Telematics to Control Fleet Costs

Published by Verizon

This study reviews the benefits of using telematics as a means to control fleet costs. Findings are supported that suggest telematics can help control costs by delivering information to the appropriate contacts at the right time and in the right place.



If you have a study that you would like to share, please email the study or a link to the study to Molly McDermott, mmcdermott@travelersmarketing.com. SafeHighways.org will maintain this database.

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