Notification System Saves Lives

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A two-minute head-start for emergency responders can make the difference between life and death. In a field operational test in Erie County, New York, funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Intelligent Transportation Systems program, automated collision notification systems (ACN) reduced incident notification times to less than one minute. This is down from a three-minute average for vehicles without ACN.

During the project, notification times were tracked for vehicles equipped with and without ACN systems. Seven hundred vehicles were equipped with ACN systems that could detect an incident when it happened and at the same time establish a communications link to call for help. The ACN automatically contacted emergency dispatchers and transmitted GPS location data, vehicle orientation (e.g., car overturned, or resting on side), and other data about the severity of the incident.

For baseline data, 2,600 other vehicles were equipped with collision event timers (CET) that were activated when an incident occurred. During the evaluation, data were collected from 15 ACN crashes and 25 collision event timer crashes. Among this small sample of crashes, the average incident notification time for vehicles equipped with ACN was less than one minute, and in some cases was as long as two minutes. Drawing from the baseline data, the average incident notification time for vehicles without ACN was approximately three minutes, and in some cases as long as 9, 12, 30, or 46 minutes.

ITSA News