Fleet Optimization for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle-Safety Service Patrol Integration for Traffic Incident Management on Interstates: Insights for Traffic Management Centers

Abstract

Traffic Incident Management (TIM) is essential for ensuring roadway safety and reducing congestion. However, issues including delayed responses, inefficient resource use, and limited access to incident sites negatively affect TIM. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), offer a viable solution by enabling rapid incident assessment, improving situational awareness, and delivering realtime data for decision-making. This study investigates the design and deployment of UAV-(Service Safety Patrol (SSP) fleet on an interstate by developing an optimization-based framework. Formulated using a 58-mile segment of I-10 in Louisiana, two mixed-integer linear programming models were developed. The objective of the first model was to minimize the number of UAVSSP units needed to meet a maximum response time threshold, and while the second model sought to minimize the total average response time for a fixed number of units. The results of this study will be used to improve incident response on interstates in Louisiana.