Traveling model of an ambulance for finding optimal routes to a hospital

Abstract

In preparation for optimal routing of patients to a hospital, this paper presents a traveling model of the ambulance that moves from the scene of an emergency to a hospital. The model is given in the form of a speed diagram along the route and constructed based on some rules: The ambulance moves with either a constant speed, a constant acceleration speed or a constant deceleration speed. The maximum speed changes depending on the legal speed limit for private vehicles. The ambulance decreases its speed to a specified level when it passes through an intersection with traffic lights or turns left or right. The model has eight adjustable parameters. They were optimized in the framework of the multi-objective optimization problem involving three objective functions, which are defined as modeling errors relevant to the traveling time, the fluctuation of blood pressure and the pressing force acting on the back of a patient. The genetic algorithm was used to obtain Pareto solutions to the problem. An optimal set of parameters was selected from among them. The validity of the model was confirmed by checking the objective functions for the validation data set. However, there was a limitation: The model does not match to the actual speed of the ambulance in such a case that it moves on the road where many traffic lights are placed close to each other and controlled synchronously.

Keywords

• drive model
• ambulance
• path search
• multiobjective optimization
• genetic algorithm
• pareto solution