Budget Cuts and Emergency Vehicle Response Times - The Efficiency of Life and Death

For those who are involved in the life and death career path of emergency response, they realize that who survives and who perishes is often in their hands when seconds count. And as long as we are counting, let me tell you what I've recently counted. I've observed a number of very alarming articles of needless deaths from slow emergency response times. Worse, most of them are due to budget cuts of staff, new equipment, and/or the latest GPS/GIS technologies to speed things along while maintaining safety.

Not long ago, I had the chance to interview Jonathan Reed on this topic of the response times of emergency vehicles. And worked to identify some of the problems and he reasoned that we need to pay more attention to; "Probability Zone" and the needs and prediction of needs which "have been well mapped and are studied/reviewed often."

Perhaps, you do not realize, but Los Angeles has some great software which is able to predict about how many crimes will occur where on any given date, and it is scary how accurate it really is, meaning they can use this to schedule police. Well, the same thing can be used for fire and ambulance teams. Jonathan proposes that we; "integrate these systems; real-time information of volumes of cars from traffic cameras so crews can avoid traffic jams. Integrating traffic lights with GPS positions of crews so that intersections can be cleared, and roads prepared for services to decrease their journey time."

Think about what he is saying and all the information we already have - first let's look at Google Maps, GIS data gathering companies, ESRI software, Battelle traffic research, not to mention all the data collected by various first responder teams. Why not integrate it all.

Another challenge is the one about human obstacles, such as blocked intersections, grid lock, drivers who do not hear sirens or will not move over? "As at the minute people can only start to move once they see or hear the emergency vehicle, quite often meaning they have to slow down repetitively en route," states Jonathan Reed.

Indeed, his comments makes sense to me, like "packet" routing on the Internet. A smart grid for traffic flows, with artificial intelligence timing how best and most efficient to get the emergency vehicles to their destination quickest, setting a priority. We could use the same algorithms used in Finite Capacity Scheduling Models for manufacturing with regards to emergency expediting - after all - really it's the same basic theory. Kind of putting in a "Rush Order" without screwing up traffic flows, which is what happens now.

So, I agree this needs fixing especially in urban areas such as LA, Seattle, Dallas, Houston, San Francisco, Phoenix, Denver, Portland, KC, OKC, Baton Rouge, Orlando, Tampa, Miami, J-Ville, Atlanta, Boston, NYC, Philly, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Louisville, Nashville, Memphis, Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, Green Bay, etc. And all the second tier cities of 400-500K pop.

As we speak the City of Los Angeles, CA is cutting 10-ambulance crews and has made drastic cuts in police and fire. This article is not speaking to union grievances or even the political firestorm that has created - rather it speaks to reality. It speaks to getting the job done more efficiently when seconds count, and life and death hang in the balance. Please consider all this.

Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank. Lance Winslow believes in efficiency even at a car wash; http://www.carwashguy.com

Note: All of Lance Winslow's articles are written by him, not by Automated Software, any Computer Program, or Artificially Intelligent Software. None of his articles are outsourced, PLR Content or written by ghost writers.