Minimising incident related congestion with dynamic diversion plan generation

Incidents account for about 25% of the total delay on UK roads [1]. One way to reduce their impact is to implement a diversion plan with an aim to make the most efficient use of the surrounding road network. Currently where plans exist diversion plans are constructed manually and stored in a fixed plan library for reference when incidents occur. Manually compiling, agreeing, and maintaining a fixed plan library is a costly and labour intensive exercise and plans can become neglected and out of date. This paper describes a prototype automatic diversion plan generation system created by TRL for the SSR directorate of the Highways Agency. The system can be used in real-time to generate diversion plans for immediate implementation, and also to help generate and maintain fixed diversion plan libraries.