Safety Service Patrol (SSP) Response to Minor Incidents – Lessons Learned Presentation

The Eastern Transportation Coalition is pleased to present the findings of the “SCOOP” Initiative: Temporary Traffic Control Guidance for Safety Service Patrol Response to Minor Incidents. The findings will be presented in a webinar to be held on November 2nd from 11am-12pm  EST.

Safety Service Patrols (SSPs) play an important role in traffic incident management by assisting motorists, supporting responders, removing minor incidents and obstructions, and helping reduce the likelihood of secondary crashes. Because SSP operators often arrive early at incident scenes, including minor incidents,  and may be working alone with only the equipment carried on a service vehicle, they must make rapid decisions about temporary traffic control under constrained field conditions.

This report examines temporary traffic control practices used by Safety Service Patrol programs during minor incidents and short-duration service calls. The findings synthesize current agency practices, transferable case study examples, and MUTCD-related considerations to support practical, scalable, and decision-based SSP temporary traffic control guidance.  The project findings support a practical path forward. SSP-specific TTC guidance that should preserve flexibility while providing clearer decision criteria for common minor-incident scenarios. By organizing guidance around field decisions, scalable deployment, operator safety, quick clearance, upstream warning, and demonstrated competency, agencies can better support SSP operators as they manage minor incidents and short-duration service calls under demanding roadway conditions.

We are pleased to have this presentation by the report author, Scott Parr PhD., Professor and Interim Department Chair of the Department of Civil Engineering at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

Please join us for this important presentation. If there are other agency staff  you believe would benefit from participating in this webinar, please contact Sabrina Causley at [email protected].