State DOTs Join USDOT Transportation & Safety Summit

June 14, 2024

Several state department of transportation executives participated in the Fourth Senior Executive Transportation and Public Safety Summit hosted at the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Transportation in Washington, D.C., June 13 and 14.

[Above photo by AASHTO]

Executive leaders from USDOT, state DOTs, transportation associations, and public safety stakeholders participated in the event to discuss the future of Traffic Incident Management or TIM practices within the mobility community; practices that focus on ways to advance responder and motorist safety while mitigating incident duration and the impact on roadways nationwide.

The Federal Highway Administration Office of Operations TIM Program initiated the first  TIM summit in June 2012, with subsequent summits held in 2015 and 2019. Each Summit sparked and sustained significant advances across various aspects of TIM, according to FHWA, such as responder training; institutionalization of TIM programs; increasing public awareness about safely navigating incident scenes; the collection and use of data to improve TIM; expansion of TIM to local and rural roadways; and the adoption of technologies to save responder and road user lives.

[Editor’s note: The Nebraska Department of Transportation is one of several state DOTs that have hosted TIM training exercises for first responders, public safety agencies, and law enforcement personnel in their respective regions.]

At the 2024 Summit, members of the TIM Executive Leadership Group or ELG publicly signed a pledge committing their organizations to continue championing the allocation of “necessary resources and programs” to keep spreading TIM practices throughout the county.

The signatories of that pledge included Jim Tymon, executive director of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials as well as Russell McMurry – commissioner of the Georgia Department of Transportation and AASHTO treasurer – in his role as chair of the Eastern Transportation Coalition.

AASHTO’s Jim Tymon signing the TIM pledge. Photo by AASHTO.

State DOT executives also participated in several sessions during the two-day summit to discuss TIM training, laws and policies related to TIM, and growing awareness for TIM for key leaders. Participants included:

  • Garrett Eucalitto, commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Transportation and AASHTO vice president;
  • Nicole Majeski, secretary of the Delaware Department of Transportation and chair of the AASHTO Public Transportation Council;
  • Vicki Kramer, director of the Nebraska DOT and chair the AASHTO Committee on Transportation System Security and Resilience;
  • Jennifer Toth, director of the Arizona Department of Transportation and chair of the AASHTO Committee on Planning;
  • Michael Hancock, deputy secretary of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet and former AASHTO president (2013-2014);
  • Sal Cowan, senior director of transportation mobility for the New Jersey Department of Transportation;
  • Jason Dicembre, director of the Office of Transportation Mobility and Operations for the Maryland Department of Transportation;
  • Deanna Brewer, incident management program manager for the Washington State Department of Transportation;
  • Robert Limoges, director of the Office of Traffic Safety and Mobility at the New York State Department of Transportation;
  • Dennis Kleen, manager of Fatality Analysis Report System or FARS crash reports for the Iowa Department of Transportation;
  • Dale Picha, transportation operations director at the Texas Department of Transportation;
  • Brett Sellers, state transportation systems management and operations or TSMO engineer at the Alabama Department of Transportation;
  • Trey Tillander, transportation technology executive director at the Florida Department of Transportation.
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