Critical Response
The Ambulance and Fire services are expected to fully respond to 75 percent of category A calls - those that are immediately serious or life threatening - within eight minutes. To meet this challenge, ESRI (UK)'s GIS is being used within the call centre environment to identify where the 999 call is being made from and the best vehicle to respond, by showing the exact current location of each on a map.
Knowing achievable response times from point of alert to arrival on scene is critical to effective resource deployment. Within the Fire Service, ESRI (UK)'s GIS is used to collect, combine, visualise and analyse a wide range of data, factoring incident location with road and traffic conditions, time of day and responder maximum safe speed for the conditions.
Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service utilise this capability to determine the optimum response times for its appliances to different locations, informing decision making on which stations fall within the range for most timely response.
Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service - analysing response times from one of its stations during peak-time morning conditions
In the case of the London Ambulance Service, Emergency medical dispatchers manning the call centre can see the closest vehicle and whether it is available, on route to, or already attending another incident. A mapping system, also using ESRI technology, shows the crew exactly where they are in relation to the call they are responding to. This mapping solution is also linked to a satellite navigation system that gives the crew directions to the destination. Prior to installing the data terminals, crews had to use map books to find the best route.
