OKTIM Partnership Leads to National Success
Wednesday, January 24, 2018
OKTIM Partnership Leads to National Success
STILLWATER, Okla. – Oklahoma’s commitment to training first responders to detect, respond and clear traffic incidents has caught the attention of the nation and world.
Federal Highway Administration’s Richard Jurey was selected to showcase the efforts of Oklahoma on implementing the FHWA – Every Day Counts – Second Strategic Highway Research Program Traffic Incident Management during the 97th annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board held in Washington, D.C. on January 7–11, 2018.
The conference features more than 5,000 presentations in nearly 800 sessions and workshops addressing topics of interest to policy makers, administrators, practitioners, researchers, and representatives of government, industry, and academic institutions. The program was expected to attract more than 13,000 transportation professionals from around the world.
Oklahoma’s Traffic Incident Management training began in September 2012 as Oklahoma hosted initial TIM train-the-trainer sessions in Oklahoma City and Broken Arrow. The first TIM training class was then conducted by Oklahoma Highway Patrol in November 2012. In September 2015, under OHP, 2,447 cumulative TIM responders were trained in-person. By December 2017, this number more than doubled to 6,499 cumulative TIM responders trained in-person.
The Oklahoma TIM Coalition’s initial mission is to promote the TIM message in Oklahoma to reduce the number of struck-by incidents and deaths of roadway workers and TIM responders, and reduce the number of secondary crashes, according to their website.
“This selection truly shows how seriously we feel in getting first responders trained in our state,” said Michael Hinkston, Local Technical Assistance Program Manager. “We built the OKTIM coalition of people that came together and saw this need for training. This has made Oklahoma number two in the nation for TIM training.”
The OKTIM coalition includes first responder groups such as emergency medical services, fire and rescue, law enforcement, towing and recovery, transportation, public safety communications and more.
“Oklahoma has more than doubled the number of responders trained since the Coalition started,” said Richard Jurey, Operations Engineer with FHWA, Oklahoma Division. “We’ve also been more successful reaching out to rural responders compared to other states.”
For more information on OKTIM or to seek training and resources, visit oktim.org.
RELEASE CONTACT: Kylie Fanning | CEAT Marketing | 405-744-2745 | kyliecf@okstate.edu
Oklahoma State University is a modern land-grant university that prepares students for success. OSU has more than 35,000 students across its five-campus system and more than 24,000 on its combined Stillwater and Tulsa campuses, with students from all 50 states and around 120 nations. Established in 1890, Oklahoma State has graduated more than 240,000 students who have been serving the state of Oklahoma, the nation and the world.