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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Ambulance-to-Traffic Light Controller Communications for Rescue Mission Enhancement
T2 - A Thailand Use Case
AU - Suthaputchakun, Chakkaphong
AU - Cao, Yue
N1 - ©2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.
PY - 2019/12/1
Y1 - 2019/12/1
N2 - During rescue missions, transferring injured people from accident scenes to rescue sites is considered crucial and time-sensitive. In particular, a one-second delay could put more lives in danger. Though ambulances are commonly equipped with standard siren devices, such siren signals are not recognized by traffic light controllers. Therefore, rescue missions could be delayed at intersections due to an urgency-unaware traffic light control system. In the worst case, pile-up accidents could also happen when the ambulances lawfully ignores the traffic lights. This paper proposes A2T to enhance the efficiency of rescue missions, by establishing a communication mechanism among ambulances and infrastructures (e.g., traffic light controllers). Thailand, which had the highest road traffic death rate in the world in 2015, is selected as a use case in this paper. A2T promotes information sharing between ambulances and traffic light controllers along the rescue path in advance. Such information, including speeds, locations, and emergency routes, allows the traffic light controllers to launch a prioritized green traffic light accordingly. This allows the ambulances to go through any road intersection efficiently and safely. Our comprehensive performance evaluation shows that A2T achieves 100 percent waiting time reduction for the ambulances, with only 2.48 percent increase in delay of other vehicles at the intersections.
AB - During rescue missions, transferring injured people from accident scenes to rescue sites is considered crucial and time-sensitive. In particular, a one-second delay could put more lives in danger. Though ambulances are commonly equipped with standard siren devices, such siren signals are not recognized by traffic light controllers. Therefore, rescue missions could be delayed at intersections due to an urgency-unaware traffic light control system. In the worst case, pile-up accidents could also happen when the ambulances lawfully ignores the traffic lights. This paper proposes A2T to enhance the efficiency of rescue missions, by establishing a communication mechanism among ambulances and infrastructures (e.g., traffic light controllers). Thailand, which had the highest road traffic death rate in the world in 2015, is selected as a use case in this paper. A2T promotes information sharing between ambulances and traffic light controllers along the rescue path in advance. Such information, including speeds, locations, and emergency routes, allows the traffic light controllers to launch a prioritized green traffic light accordingly. This allows the ambulances to go through any road intersection efficiently and safely. Our comprehensive performance evaluation shows that A2T achieves 100 percent waiting time reduction for the ambulances, with only 2.48 percent increase in delay of other vehicles at the intersections.
U2 - 10.1109/MCOM.001.1900038
DO - 10.1109/MCOM.001.1900038
M3 - Journal article
VL - 57
SP - 91
EP - 97
JO - IEEE Communications Magazine
JF - IEEE Communications Magazine
SN - 0163-6804
IS - 12
ER -