Road Rangers again helping with accident clearing 24/7 on highways

The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) District Four will expand its road service patrol and incident management program – Road Rangers. The program will resume night and weekend patrols after funding was  restored for the valuable program. This 24-hour, seven-days-a-week coverage starts today, Sept. 1.

Patrol hours will expand along I-75, I-95 and portions of I-595 in Broward and Palm Beach Counties although the number of trucks patrolling at any given time will not increase. Road Rangers provide free motorist assistance, lane clearance, debris removal and other safety services to emergency responders. Cutbacks last year reduced services to 6 a.m. – 7 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. Separately, the I-595 Express LLC project began 24×7 Road Ranger patrols on a 10-mile stretch of I-595 on July 31.

Additionally, coverage will be extended to Oakland Park Boulevard in Broward County. One truck will patrol on weekdays during peak hours (6 a.m. – 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. – 7 p.m.). Coverage on Oakland Park Boulevard is east and westbound from University Drive to US 1. This particular addition to the program is part of a Transportation Systems Management and Operations (TSM&O) effort by the FDOT. Oakland Park Boulevard in specific was selected due to it having the highest crash rate of the TSM&O network arterials.

The Road Ranger program began the late 1980s during the I-95 reconstruction in Broward County. Seeing the safety benefits of the program since then, FDOT, the Florida Highway Patrol and other emergency responders have improved incident response times and lane clearance times while aggressively meeting defined performance measures to restore traffic flow. Road Rangers assisted over 76,000 motorists last year in both counties with tire repairs, fuel and other services to get them on their way. State Farm Insurance Company sponsors the program allowing for additional trucks.

Stranded motorist needing assistance should call *FHP (*347) from any mobile phone (or 911 in case of an emergency) for roadside service.

The Road Ranger Service Patrols are dispatched from two Transportation Management Centers (TMCs) managed by FDOT District Four in Broward and Palm Beach Counties. The TMCs monitor freeways and major arterial routes with closed circuit TV cameras, speed sensors, traffic signal control devices and a fleet of Road Ranger Service Patrol vehicles. In coordination with local law enforcement and fire rescue, TMC operators identify and respond aggressively to quickly clear incidents, disabled vehicles and other interruptions to traffic with the intelligent transportation systems (ITS) equipment. Information from the TMC is displayed on Dynamic Message Signs (DMS) and on the region’s 511 Advanced Traveler Information Service. For real-time traffic conditions or information about the SMART SunGuide TMC, please visit www.SMARTSunGuide.com.

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Posted by Andrea Freygang on Sep 1 2009. Filed under Transportation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.