Impact of Ambulance Dispatch Policies on Performance of Emergency Medical Services

In ambulance location models, fleet size and ambulance location sites are two critical factors that emergency medical service (EMS) managers can control to ensure efficient delivery of the system. The ambulance relocation and dispatch policies that are studied in dynamic ambulance relocation models also significantly contribute to improving the response time of EMS. In this paper, dynamic ambulance relocation models are reviewed from the perspective of dispatch policies. The connection between the reviewed ambulance dispatch policies and real-life policies is highlighted. The ambulance model is based on the modified maximal covering location problem (MCLP). It is used to examine the commonly used dispatch policy and the proposed method of free-ambulance exploitation to further improve urgent call response time. Simulation results show that the proposed method can reduce the response time of urgent calls, especially during low-ambulance-supply period. The performance of EMS with and without reroute-enabled dispatch is compared.

• Record URL:
  https://doi.org/10.1109/TITS.2010.2101063
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/oclc/41297384
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Abstract reprinted with permission of IEEE.
• Authors:
  • Lim, Cheng Siong
  • Mamat, Rosbi
  • Braunl, Thomas
• Publication Date: 2011

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: pp 624-632
• Serial:
  • IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems
  • Volume: 12
  • Issue Number: 2
  • Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
  • ISSN: 1524-9050
  • Serial URL: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=6979

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Ambulances; Automatic vehicle location; Dispatching; Emergency response time; Fleet management; Optimization; Simulation
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Highways; I71: Traffic Theory;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01352227
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: UC Berkeley Transportation Library
• Files: TLIB
• Created Date: Aug 1 2011 10:58AM