Multi-Methods Based Proactive Model for Ambulance Passage Clearance During Medical Emergency

In the realm of ambulance services, prioritizing the improvement of the shortest path for ambulances is often overlooked, however, there is still much room for improvement in refining the shortest path methods to better serve the specific needs of the ambulance sector. Therefore, a new algorithm called Ambulance Priority Algorithm is proposed, this algorithm is designed to cater ambulance sector where ambulance drivers’ needs are taken into consideration to enhance ambulance operations, service to patients, and patients experience. Any path can be a shortest path, however, if the path generated is able to avoid obstacles along the way, hence, obstacle-free path, this will produce an efficient shortest path that ambulance can travel to reach destination in a fast and secure manner. Extensive experiments were carried out to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm; replicating a map by creating paths and obstacles on a small grid size consisting of squared blocks in columns and rows, Ambulance Priority Algorithm attained a much shorter total distance of 41blocks compared to another well-known algorithm which attained 58 blocks. Whereas on a larger grid size, the proposed algorithm achieved total distance of 1412 blocks compared to existing algorithm which scored 1998 blocks. In terms of running time, major difference was noticed on the larger grid with a difference of 2.09 seconds. Overall, the Ambulance Priority Algorithm performed better as it exhibited faster computation time and a shorter total distance.