Five years of data shows a state incentives program is getting Interstate 81 traffic moving more quickly after crashes and other traffic incidents involving commercial vehicles, according to the Virginia Department of Transportation.
Virginia’s Towing and Recovery Incentive Program, or TRIP, pays heavy-duty tow-service providers $3,000 per incident if they respond in a timely manner and clear travel lanes within 90 minutes. An operator who responds on time but whose services are canceled still can earn $600.
After five years of the program operating on I-81, tow providers working under TRIP have responded to more than 2,000 commercial-vehicle incidents and earned incentives 97% of the time, VDOT said in a recent news release.
“The program reduces congestion and lowers the risk of secondary crashes resulting from interstate traffic approaching slowed or stopped vehicles,” the state agency said.
Tow providers arrive on scene in 34 minutes on average. Their average scene-clearance time — the period between when a traffic incident happens and when all travel lanes reopen — is 77 minutes, which is 40 minutes faster than before the program, VDOT said.
The incentives began in 2017 and expanded in summer 2021 to include the 325-mile corridor of I-81 in Virginia. It now covers I-81 and I-77 and parts of I-95, I-85 and I-64.
VDOT says I-81 has the highest proportion of commercial truck traffic among interstate highways in the commonwealth.
The program has 39 participating tow providers, of whom 19 are assigned to I-81, according to VDOT.
The program’s I-81 operations are funded by Virginia’s $4 billion Corridor Improvement Program, which includes dozens of construction and traffic-operations projects on the highway.
State officials said that the I-81 part of the road-clearing effort has an annual cost of $1.78 million, based on a three-year average. That figure includes incentives, program management and provider training.
