GIS-Based Model for Incident Response Units Dispatching

Incident response measures are continuously being developed to deal with each incident in an effective and timely manner. One component in incident response actions is to deploy appropriate response units to the incident scene and clear the incident as quickly as possible. This paper presents a novel approach to response units dispatching in real time with a view of optimizing the process of multiple incident response management, namely minimizing total response travel time of all the response units. A GIS, i.e. TransCAD, is applied to incorporate an optimization model of response units dispatching, conduct data processing, and visualize the results. To test the proposed dispatching model, a microscopic traffic simulation tool, i.e. PARAMICS, is used to derive the real time traffic information with incident occurrences, which is then transmitted to GIS for dispatch optimization and dynamic routing of response vehicles. The results show that a GIS furnished with real time traffic information offers a powerful platform for intelligent incident response dispatching.