Save A Life (S.A.L.) Maps is aimed at solving a pressing problem faced in metropolitan cities, focusing on finding the optimum way to clear out traffic congestion for emergency service providers (ESP) to commute faster in the hour of need.
This is a novel software-based solution that is easy to deploy, cost-effective, and scalable when compared to the existing hardware solutions.
The solution assists people in helping one another in frightful situations through an integration of cyber and physical space, alerting contingency services and people in the way, promoting a safer and more alert society to improve quality of life, as envisioned in society 5.0.
India has over 3 lakh emergencies occurring every day where over 9.5% of the population is being affected by an emergency each year. We aim to improve the effectiveness and success rate of the emergency service responding within the golden hour to maximize its efficiency.
Our solution has a threefold purpose:
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Helps connect users to report a situation to avail emergency services.
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Connects the emergency service dispatch to the user in need and provides an optimised route with our pathfinding algorithm that works in real time.
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Notifies users along the way of the ESP’s path to move out of the way in advance to ensure that a clear route is provided.
When an emergency has occurred, (for example a medical emergency such as a cardiac arrest or an accident) the general public user can report this situation on the app, where they can request for an emergency vehicle to be dispatched (an ambulance in this case) with their precise location being shared with just a single tap on the application. A notification is then broadcasted to all the nearby ESPs that are registered with the application. The first available ESP to accept this request will be provided with the user’s location and contact details. An optimum route is then generated for the ESP so that they can reach the place of emergency in time.
The user who reported this emergency will get information on the ambulance details and the ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) and the contact details of the driver / onboard paramedics/assistants.
The ambulance will get a turn-by-turn navigation route that is optimized by our algorithm to include wider roads and easily reachable roads instead of just the shortest path which can be congested with traffic, this makes mobility easier.
The traffic police stationed along this route is also notified so they can also help to manually clear the way for quicker travel in high priority situations.
This route also is cleared out by sending notifications to active general public map users on this path who are within a specific radius ahead of the ambulance’s current location so they can make way to clear the path ahead for the ambulance to reach it’s destination quicker. They will be notified that an ambulance is coming in their way in advance (as an ETA) with a message telling them to move aside in a particular direction to clear out a particular lane for the ambulance. This ensures synchronous movement among the willing users to make way for the ambulance.
The same is repeated for the trip to the hospital from the incident spot location.
Our optimized path algorithm is a unique selling point as it is what makes the whole operation possible and gives the facility for the emergency service to reach its destination faster.
Another use case of the solution is targeted towards the emergency organ transportation services as they are time critical in nature. Using our solution can bring hours of prep-time down to minutes for transport so the operation can be done quicker.
To make this operation possible, we need a database of the ambulances, hospitals, and traffic police posts to ensure the ambulances and hospitals are alerted and notified and the traffic police people are able to assist in blocking other traffic at the intersections they are stationed in.
This model ensures that more hospitals and private ambulance service providers register with the application as it is a great means to gain traction for their respective businesses.