Presentation to APCO Australiasia 2007GOLD COAST , QUEENSLAND, 22/02/2007 ESP - The Future in RAPID ResponseSynopsisWhen responding to an emergency incident the risk profile of emergency service vehicles and personnel increases. Traffic intersection priority can reduce delay and improve safety by understanding the route a response vehicle will take and setting up traffic signals ahead of time. ESP monitors vehicles responding to an incident and delivers this Emergency Signal Priority using sophisticated prediction algorithms. The time is now right to proceed with ESP and deliver safety and speed at signalized intersections. PresentationBarry loves his doof doof machine. He got his car a year ago and with the cool mags, metallic paint and sick pipes Barry knows the girls will find it hard to resist him. He turns the music up to feel the energy and plants it. Doof doof doof dooof vrrooommm. Two kilometers away the crew of 233 are heading to a 50 year old male with cardiac arrest. Barry has a red light. He’s pumpin’ but he knows the rules so he slows down getting ready to stop then when the light goes green he floors it. Straight into the side of 233. The music grinds on as six streets away a tenuous life slips out of reach. Perhaps it would all have been different if the traffic signals could have been held on red for another 5 seconds. In NSW at least 1 ambulance per year is written off as a result of accidents at signalized intersections. Many more are damaged in less severe accidents with similar numbers in other states. But, as Emergency services know all too well, the real cost is not the $200,000 or more loss of a vehicle. It is in the lives lost as a result of the delay cause by having to allocate another vehicle to the call. What is needed is a way to make the intersection transitions safer and the overall journey faster. This is not a new dilemma and there have been a number of systems developed around the world to try and address this problem. All have operated on the basis of local priority called using some form of optical, sound or radio transmitter fitted to each vehicle and a receiver at the intersection. The Federal Highways Administration in the USA records significant benefits for the various systems. A 2006 study shows for one city a reduction in crashes from 2.3 per year to less than 1 in 5 years and in another city time savings of 30 – 45 seconds per intersection on high volume routes. These system work but they have some serious limitations. For instance, optical systems are very much line of sight. This is fine on a straight road but not so useful when in a hilly town or in the rain. Conversely, sound and radio based systems suffer as a result of being too broad and the signal can easily end up at the wrong intersection. Tuning the systems to overcome these limitations often places very real physical constraints on range and approach angles and limits how much you can do with the traffic signals. With a little experience it becomes clear that the ideal solution is one that is radio based with low latency and discrete device addressing. In today’s world that means digital radio like GPRS or 3G. This technology sounds familiar but just how do we use it to avoid our collision with Barry the chick magnet and his doof doof machine? Well there are significant benefits to emergency services from pre-empting the operation of the traffic signals immediately in front of the response vehicle. Even greater benefits come from setting the intersection up to give the response vehicle a green light before it gets to the intersection. This allows any cars to clear the intersection and will safely shut down opposing movements reducing the overall travel time to the incident. Crude forms of this control exist today with corridors out of stations often established over five or six intersections on defined routes. To provide any more control than this we need to know where the vehicle is going and the route that it will follow. In a live response call the only way that you can do this is with ESP.
Emergency Signal Priority (ESP if you haven’t already guessed) is an Intelligent Transport System integrated with the way you work. This is best illustrated by looking at a typical dispatch scenario. In response to an emergency call, Computer Aided Dispatch operators will select a vehicle and advise the vehicle operator of the location of the incident. Most modern emergency services will be using a CAD system and are likely to have this supported with a digital AVL and wireless dispatch system. If this isn’t the case for you, come over to the Technisyst stand and we will show you how it works and the benefits you can gain. The electronic dispatch advice containing the destination latitude and longitude is sent to the vehicle using a published Mobile Data Interface and a wireless data gateway. All CAD systems have a mobile data Interface, although it tends to be different for each vendor. It is a small task to expand this if needed and CAD vendors have already expressed their support for the use of this interface for ESP. This interface is used by the ESP system to identify the final destination of the call. Route mapping algorithms within the ESP system then determine the route expected to be followed including the series of intersections enroute to the incident. It also determines the path through each intersection.
In the response vehicle the driver receives the dispatch message. They acknowledge this, accepting the call, and immediately depart for the destination using driver experience and local knowledge to select a route. Because time is critical, drivers will not wait for a computer navigation system to tell them starting directions. They already know the general direction. It is up to any route determining system to catch up and keep up. Fortunately these days a lot of GPS systems, even the cheaper ones, will have no difficulty in doing this. Indeed, the prevalence of low cost GPS trip planners is already resulting in moves to include these devices in vehicles either as a stand alone unit or as part of the wireless data solution. Once a set of directions is known, audio trip announcements can enhance responses even further whilst retaining the needed route flexibility. The drivers route may vary from the planned route for a number of reasons including local conditions, local knowledge and road rules. For instance a trip planner will not send a response vehicle the wrong way up a one way street and will enforce turn bans in the directions it gives. The key to ESP is that it supports these in vehicle systems, complementing rather than competing and giving drivers the best of both worlds. The driver selects the route using experience, local GPS systems and other tools and ESP tracks and predicts behind the scenes. When the driver takes an alternative route to that expected then ESP will recalculate a new expected route. When the vehicle goes on a call the mobile data solution typically changes the rate at which location and status are sent to the CAD system. The ESP system listens to the position reports coming into the CAD system and compares this to the planned route. As long as the driver is seen to be following the route predicted by the ESP system it will seek to improve the trip using the traffic signals. As already identified, the key to delivering dynamic routing is knowing where the vehicle is going. With the expected route determined, ESP predicts when the vehicle will arrive at intersections ahead of its current location and makes requests of the traffic system to select the best phase for the route in accordance with previously agreed business rules. As this happens well ahead of the arrival of the vehicle it allows a safe shutdown of opposing traffic, flushing the traffic in the direction of travel and clearing the way to the intersection. As soon as the vehicle is detected leaving the intersection the ESP server cancels the priority call, minimising disruption to normal traffic. To fit in with other priority systems that may be used for buses and trams these requests pass through a priority broker normally gaining the highest level of priority. Several years ago emergency service groups approached traffic authorities for assistance with intersections but the technology at the time was not able to deliver and the results were limited. Times have changed, technology has advanced, but the need remains as vital as ever. APCO is the prime industry body and this is our premier industry event so it is fitting that Technisyst announce today that we will provide the leadership for the new push to improve our response times by delivering ESP in Australia and New Zealand. Technisyst is ideally placed to lead this push as we are the leading ITS company in the region and already have the key technology components in place. For example, Technisyst routinely tracks and passes data to and from over 2000 ambulances in Australia and New Zealand. We are currently delivering secure, guaranteed, wireless data to emergency responders using the two leading CAD systems in the region. We are also delivering priority to over 1000 buses in Melbourne and Auckland using our RAPID system working together with the SCATS traffic control system. We are committed to saving lives and recognise that this is an exciting opportunity for us all to work together for a common result. Technisyst will be making a significant investment in this project. Technically this is not trivial but it is well within our scope and capability. We ask for your support, your knowledge, your expertise to help put it all together. This is a national project and Technisyst knows that the more contributors the better the solution and the greater the savings to those agencies that contribute. So what is next? Discussion, understanding and definition. We have already received expressions of support from ITS Australia and APCO who recognise the value in a national approach. To ensure that all your needs are in the mix we intend to run a national workshop. Amongst other items, this will aim to resolve some of the more difficult business issues such as what works best in delivering emergency priority - a green phase as described earlier or perhaps an all red condition allowing the emergency service vehicles to travel up the opposing side of the road in relative safety. About Technisyst Technisyst Pty Ltd is a world-class supplier of intelligent transport systems (ITS) to the public safety and transport markets. Headquartered in Brisbane, Australia, with more than 10 years experience Technisyst’s vision is to be a leader in the provision of ITS technology. For more information about Technisyst, visit. www.technisyst.com.au For further information: David Panter
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