On Being Prepared: Automated Vehicle Incident Management Exercise Practices

Computer Science > Computers and Society
[Submitted on 4 Sep 2026]
Title:On Being Prepared: Automated Vehicle Incident Management Exercise Practices
View PDFAbstract:Incident management (IM) has evolved over recent decades to cover an ever-expanding array of hazards and systems. Barring real-life experience, exercises are a key tool in developing an effective IM program. As part of enterprise resilience and operational readiness, IM practitioners design exercises to understand and build capabilities for efficiently and effectively responding to incidents. Combining research and policy on an emerging transportation technology, automated vehicles (AVs), with established practices for IM, we describe what makes exercises effective and how they can be used to identify gaps and develop capacity. A range of exercise types exist, from workshops, to tabletops, to drills, and to full-scale exercises. Every stage of an exercise - preparing, setting up, facilitating, closing, and assessing - is interconnected and should further the exercise's objectives. AV IM practitioners can maximize the utility of a mature exercise program through exercise quality, diversity, and volume. The need to respond to AV incidents, from collisions to natural hazards, is inevitable. This paper tailors existing practices to a series of frameworks, predicated on the unique socio-technical nature of AVs to provide first-of-its-kind guidance for AV IM exercises. Additionally, these frameworks are company-neutral to enable intercompany and inter-organization collaboration.
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* Incident management has evolved to cover an expanding array of hazards and systems.
* Exercises are a key tool in developing an effective incident management program.
* Practitioners design exercises to understand and build capabilities for responding to incidents.
* The paper combines research on automated vehicles (AVs) with established IM practices.
* A range of exercise types includes workshops, tabletops, drills, and full-scale exercises.
* Every stage of an exercise—preparing, setting up, facilitating, closing, and assessing—is interconnected.
* AV IM practitioners can maximize exercise utility through quality, diversity, and volume.
* New frameworks are tailored to the socio-technical nature of AVs for AV IM exercises.
* These frameworks are company-neutral to allow intercompany collaboration.

Incident management has evolved to encompass a broader range of hazards and systems, necessitating exercises as a key tool for developing effective programs, especially given the lack of real-life experience. Practitioners use exercises to understand and build capabilities for responding to incidents efficiently. The paper combines research on automated vehicles (AVs) with established incident management practices to describe what makes these exercises effective for AV IM. A variety of exercise types exist, including workshops, tabletops, drills, and full-scale exercises, all of which are interconnected in their preparation, setup, facilitation, closing, and assessment stages. To maximize the utility of an exercise program for AV IM practitioners, quality, diversity, and volume of exercises are important. The necessity to respond to AV incidents is acknowledged, and existing practices are tailored to new frameworks based on the socio-technical nature of AVs to guide specific AV IM exercises. These new frameworks aim to provide guidance for incident management concerning AVs while remaining company-neutral for collaboration.

The framework presented addresses a gap between traditional incident management protocols and the unique challenges posed by automated vehicles. The shift towards structuring exercise practices around the "socio-technical nature" of AVs suggests that current IM models may lack the necessary granularity to account for the interwoven human, technological, and system dynamics inherent in AV incidents. The emphasis on quality, diversity, and volume implies a recognition that effective resilience is not achieved through a single type of drill but through a comprehensive spectrum of simulation targeting different failure modes. The creation of company-neutral frameworks is a critical move toward fostering interoperability, suggesting that fragmented organizational responses to complex transport risks undermine overall system resilience. The implication is that operational readiness in the AV space requires methodological standardization beyond simple procedural drills; it demands an exercise philosophy rooted in understanding the emergent complexity of the technology interacting with society. The missing element, which demands further inquiry, is how these socio-technical frameworks translate directly into quantifiable metrics for risk reduction and adaptive capacity within an organizational context. What specific mechanisms are needed to ensure that this framework moves beyond description to prescriptive action regarding AV incident response?

On Being Prepared: Automated Vehicle Incident Management Exercise Practices

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On Being Prepared: Automated Vehicle Incident Management Exercise Practices

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Executive Summary

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