Study & Assessment by:
Shivesh Kaushik (MA Public Policy, Cities and Governance)
Prerna Sinha (MA Public Policy, Cities and Governance)
Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad.
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Be it the “Sonic Boom” from a fighter aircraft or the “Siren” (Wail of an emergency response system), when it pierces the human ears, drops an array of satisfaction that — the problem has been “Identified”, and response is on the way.
The response needs a clear path, ensuring freedom of movement and seamless passage with minimal traffic. However, among the three principles of Sense, Reach and Care, the middle element, Reach, finds itself trapped in traffic.
Urban Traffic Congestion and the Cost of Delayed Emergency Response
The average travel time in Mumbai, per hour, is 18-21 km, whereby it partially drops during “Peak office hours”. Interestingly, for an “Emergency Response System” to play on the above statistics, the ERSs will maintain a speed of 2.5-3 minutes per kilometer. On the other hand, to cater to the accidents on the highway, the NHAI rules say, a 60 km/hour continuous speed limit is supposed to be achieved as part of the response system. Now, as this highlights, the average speed of ERSs is lurching and behind by 2.5 km/minute.
To correlate, a loss of every minute in cases of cardiac arrest reduces the survival rate by 7-10%, and so, the current loitering speed of ERS ambulances seems to have resulted in a 21-30% loss of survivability. And, this is critical. A perspective shift is required: Amassing intrinsic and extrinsic infrastructure could do the job of prevention, but the question of ingress and egress affecting Rescue is still unanswered in the glare of urban traffic phenomena.
Mumbai’s Monsoon: Rising Demand for Emergency Medical Response
Mumbai records the majority chunk of its precipitation during the monsoon, preferably from July to September, hovering between 470 mm and 800 mm; hence, it qualifies for a popular urban-related terminology called waterlogging.
Areas including Colaba, Powai, Malwani, and Borivali alone account for above 230 mm of rainfall. Thereafter, calls for EMRs ambulances uptick.
During the monsoon, due to a rise in water-borne diseases, cites the BMC reports. Disease highlights name: Dengue, Malaria, Leptospirosis, etc.
The reports add that such cases are ranked top in the list of patients admitted during the monsoon season, in hospitals, stressing the emergency medical wards excessively. Many times: Hospital-to-hospital transfer calls, becomes imperative.
The demand for ambulances surges undoubtedly, yet, it is coupled with traffic challenges posed, on the way.
India’s Regulatory Framework: The Right of Way for Emergency Response Systems
India, today – Deposits applauded, comprehensive government policy and legal framework governing the movement of emergency response systems.
The “Right of way” under regulation 27 of the “Motor Vehicle Regulation, 2017, is illustrious. It permits EMRs: Right of way over all other vehicles if sirens and flashers are activated. Under traffic exemption, such drivers are permitted to cross: red lights; drive on the highway’s hard shoulders; temporarily enter “No entry” or “One Way” streets, provided they do this with utmost caution.
Despite this, a wide range of grey spaces are left with ambiguity on what defines utmost caution. This could deprive the rider’s ability to take risks in averting any harm to the victim’s life, dignity, or property.
Mumbai’s Operational Measures: Managing Traffic for Emergency Mobility
In Mumbai, some of the operational guidelines add to the efficiency caused to the operation of EMRs. To control-check, peak hour heavy vehicle bans: To keep arterial corridors seamless for quick public transit and emergency response, Mumbai endorses and enforces a peak hour ban on heavy vehicles (8 AM – 11 AM and 5 PM – 9 PM); however, emergency vehicles and ambulances are immune with this and enjoy all-time movement.
Real-Time Green Corridors: Orchestrating Real-time “Green Corridors” for critical medical situations (like organ transport or severe trauma), manually overriding traffic signals, making dynamic path across city.
Emergency Response Vehicles (ERVs): The Mumbai police have expanded their ground capabilities by rolling out dedicated “Emergency Response Vehicles (ERVs) – Including modified motorcycles and SUVs – Specifically designed to navigate high-footfall and high-congestion urban sectors.
The Golden Hour: The Need for a Faster Emergency Response: The “World Health Organisation” – Golden Hour Benchmark aims for an 8-10-minute response time, as against 25-35 minutes in India today. In spite of intermittent challenges, such modalities can be dealt with a twin-track approach, usually involving short-term and long-term approaches in urban India.
Short-Term Policy Interventions: Technology-Enabled Emergency Mobility
Intelligent Dynamic Traffic Signal Pre-emption: A busy motor movement in urban spaces like Mumbai, policy could incorporate – Intelligent Dynamic Traffic Signal Preemption – that would sense an emergency vehicle, if approaching, to algorithm green-signal for the passage of such vehicle.
Multi-Modal First Responders: Alongside this, Deploying Multi-Modal first responders (motorcycles & Mini ERVs) at places with high density with essential life-support kit (AEDs, oxygen, trauma packs, etc). This will complement ambulances chasing and navigating behind.
Long-Term Policy Interventions: Infrastructure and Technological Transformation
Along with scientific short-term interventions, the country is expected to ride on long-term infrastructural overhaul to cater to such needs amid rising population, dynamic health challenges, evolving curation and medicines.
Air Ambulance and Drone-Based Logistics: Firstly, the expansion of the air ambulance & Drone – Based Logistics: Building urban helipads and deploying automated medical delivery drones intervening with critical assets like (Blood bags, defibrillators, antivenom, organs) directly to crash sites or remote areas, typically bypassing ground congestion. This will enable the seamless passage of the highest–priority emergency logistics.
AI-Driven Predictive Positioning of Emergency Fleets: Secondly, AI-Driven Predictive positioning of fleets amid centralised traffic command. This could translate into processing and analysing typical traffic bottlenecks data, weather, time of the day, and accident hotspots to pre-position response units at places to increase dispatch speed and frequency. If this is coupled with command and control centres for live traffic control, it certainly will produce pleasant results.
Dedicated Emergency Transit Corridors and Adaptive Physical Infrastructure: Last but not least is “A dedicated emergency transit corridors & Adaptive Physical Infrastructure” – Re-engineering major urban arterial corridors to include dedicated – Emergency lanes or hard shoulders equipped with automated bollards, exclusively for authorized emergency fleets.
Seamless Emergency Mobility as the Bedrock of Responsive Governance
This will not just pay principles to right of way, but be tribute of ethical, just, inclusive governance for those trusting and paying tributes for governance in liberating personal liberties and attaining rights and duties as a reciprocal tradeoff in the social contract.
Underpinning seamless movement and passage is unequivocal for urban traffic management policy as against comfortable means of mobility. And so, the former is “Bedrock” for the movement of Emergency response systems.
(The views and perspectives expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of any institution or organisation.)
References
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