Construction of a dynamic arrival time coverage map for emergency medical services

This article presents a design of coverage maps for emergency journeys made by emergency medical services. The system was designed for the Malopolskie Voivodeship Office in Cracow, Poland. The proposed solution displays maps of the ambulance coverage of areas and ambulance's potential journey times. There are two versions of the map: static and dynamic. The static version is used to appropriately allocate ambulances to cover an area with the ability to reach locations in less than 15 or 20 minutes; the dynamic version allows monitoring of ambulance fleets under normal conditions or in the event of a crisis. The article also presents the results of archival data related to the movement of ambulances on the roads of Malopolskie Voivodship. Particular attention was paid to the relation between the speed of vehicles and the traffic on the road, the day of the week or month, and long-term trends. The collected observations made it possible to assume a general model of ambulance movement in the voivodeship to calculate arrival time coverage maps.