The Role of the Built Environment in Emergency Medical Services Delays in Responding to Traffic Crashes
Publication: Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Volume 148, Issue 10
Abstract
This study aims to explore the role of built environments affecting emergency medical services (EMS) responses to traffic crashes. Specifically, this study integrated socioeconomic databases with a crash database that contains the EMS response information. Given the multilevel data structure, a hierarchical model was developed to connect EMS response times to the built environment and other associated factors at various hierarchies. The model results revealed that the built environment plays a vital role in EMS performance in terms of response times. For example, EMS response times differ significantly between rural and urban areas. If other factors are held constant, the EMS response time for a rural crash is 25.13% more likely to be longer than 10 min than for an urban crash. Other factors such as land use, area, development, roadway class, road lighting, weather, and EMS facility distance are also significantly related to EMS response times. This study offers insights into improving EMS responses to traffic crashes by considering the role of built environments. More implications are discussed in the paper.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code used during the study were provided by a third party. Direct request for these materials may be made to the provider as indicated in the Acknowledgments.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the Alabama Department of Transportation and the University of Alabama’s Center for Advanced Public Safety for sharing the crash data. The American Community Survey data were downloaded from www.census.gov. The authors appreciate the funding support from the Department of Civil, Construction and Environmental Engineering, Center for Transportation Operations, Safety, and Planning, and Alabama Transportation Institute at the University of Alabama. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors, who are responsible for the facts and accuracy of information presented herein.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Transportation Engineering, Part A: Systems
Volume 148 • Issue 10 • October 2022
Copyright
© 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 13, 2021
Accepted: May 12, 2022
Published online: Aug 9, 2022
Published in print: Oct 1, 2022
Discussion open until: Jan 9, 2023
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