The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) Traffic Incident Management (TIM) Program plays a critical role in maintaining safe and reliable travel across Florida’s highways. By coordinating multi-agency efforts, the program helps quickly detect, respond to, and clear traffic incidents, minimizing secondary crashes and restoring normal traffic flow as swiftly as possible. These efforts are especially vital as Florida’s population and roadway usage continue to grow.
Smart Solutions for Safer Travel: FDOT’s TIM Program
The TIM Program is comprised of local, state, and private partners, including law enforcement, fire rescue, emergency medical services, transportation, towing and recovery service providers, medical examiners, hazardous material responders, and media.
Road Rangers
An integral part of the TIM Program, the Road Rangers Service Patrol provides free traffic incident management response services and highway assistance to motorists. This assistance helps to improve highway safety for emergency responders and the motoring public.
Motorists in need of assistance call *347 on their mobile phone. Road Rangers patrol congested areas and high-incident locations of the roadway to provide help to motorists. They quickly clear travel lanes of minor incidents and aid motorists.
Service patrol drivers are all in uniform, courteous, and most have or are in training for first aid and CPR. Since the program’s inception in 2000, the Road Rangers have made over 6.1 million service assists.
Road Ranger services include:
- Change flat tires
- Jump-start vehicles and make minor repairs
- Clear disabled vehicles from travel lanes
- Clear debris from travel lanes
- Supply emergency gasoline, diesel, and water
- Monitor abandoned vehicles and notify FHP
- Provide maintenance-of-traffic (MOT) services during incidents
The benefits of the Road Ranger program include the reduction of crashes and incident duration and increased safety at incident scenes.
The Road Ranger Service Patrol is funded by the Florida Department of Transportation, regional tolling authorities, and other partners.
Rapid Incident Scene Clearance (RISC) Program
This innovative program supports FDOT’s Open Roads Policy goal of safely clearing major highway incidents and truck crashes in 90 minutes or less.
When a major crash threatens to pose significant travel delays, the RISC Program staff works with partners that have specialized equipment and trained operators to quickly remove wreckage from the roadway.
This incentive-based program is managed locally by FDOT’s regional district offices to ensure fast, coordinated incident responses. The Contractor has the responsibility to respond to the incident within 60 minutes of an activation request. Once on scene, they have 90 minutes to open the travel lanes for traffic. If the proper equipment arrives on scene within 60 minutes and the travel lanes are cleared within 90 minutes, the Contractor is eligible for the incentive.