RapidSQ: An Integrated Real-Time Emergency Response and Ambulance Coordination System

Abstract In critical medical emergencies, timely intervention during the 'Golden Hour' dictates patient survival rates. Traditional Emergency Medical Services (EMS) rely heavily on fragmented verbal reporting chains over telephonic dispatch lines, resulting in severe coordination latency, landmark ambiguity, and completely unannounced arrivals at hospital emergency bays. This paper presents RapidSQ, an integrated, event-driven, real-time emergency response and ambulance coordination platform engineered to eliminate inter-entity friction among distressed citizens, emergency vehicle operators, and healthcare trauma facilities. RapidSQ replaces verbal triage with a sub-second, one-tap SOS mechanism that autonomously captures high-precision device GPS coordinates and packages them alongside pre-registered patient medical profiles (e.g., blood group, chronic conditions, and emergency contacts). The system deploys an asynchronous backend engine orchestrating spatial multicast notifications via Firebase Cloud Messaging, coupled with atomic transaction locking to eliminate double-booking across concurrent responder bids within strict acceptance windows. Furthermore, RapidSQ bridges the navigation gap by utilizing zero-cost native map intents with dynamic traffic-aware routing and enables automated pre-hospital telemetry sharing with receiving clinical teams. Tested in real-world Android environments across local ambulance fleets, the system reduced emergency dispatch latency from typical 3–7 minute verbal triage intervals to under 1 second, achieved ± 3 m GPS accuracy, successfully resolved millisecond concurrency races with 100% atomic consistency, and passed comprehensive automated test suites. The architecture delivers a cost-effective, readily deployable end-to-end paradigm for smart urban emergency management.