An Optimization Model for Real-Time Emergency Vehicle Dispatching and Routing

The efficiency of Emergency Medical Service (EMS) system is a major public safety concern. When real-time traffic and travel time data are available to EMS dispatch center, a real-time and flexible dispatching strategy could be used to save crucial response time for EMS. This research concentrates on developing an optimization model for developing flexible dispatching strategies that take advantage of available real-time travel time information. The problem is formulated as an integer programming model in which a dynamic shortest path algorithm is used. Emergency vehicles and incidents are divided into categories so that different constraints could be incorporated. A simulation experiment demonstrates how this formulation works under real-time traffic conditions. The major modules of this simulation model include travel time prediction, dynamic shortest path, incident/vehicles tracking, and dispatch optimization. This simulation model is a conceptual design of a real-time EMS system. The real-time dispatch strategy, a key component of this simulation model, is validated by various samples. A series of tests verify the validity of the model structure and the sensitivity of the integer programming formulation to changes in various parameters