Empirical Analysis of Ambulance Travel Times: The Case of Calgary Emergency Medical Services

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Budge, Susan; Ingolfsson, Armann; Zerom, Dawit
• 署名单位: University of Alberta; California State University System; California State University Fullerton
• 刊物名称: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0025-1909
• DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.1090.1142
• 发表日期: 2010
• 页码: 716-723
• 关键词: ambulance service; probability-of-coverage map; Nonparametric; travel

摘要

Using administrative data for high-priority calls in Calgary, Alberta, we estimate how ambulance travel times depend on distance. We find that a logarithmic transformation produces symmetric travel-time distributions with heavier tails than those of a normal distribution. Guided by nonparametric estimates of the median and coefficient of variation, we demonstrate that a previously proposed model for mean fire engine travel times is a valid and useful description of median ambulance travel times. We propose a new specification for the coefficient of variation, which decreases with distance. We illustrate how the resulting travel-time distribution model can be used to create probability-of-coverage maps for diagnosis and improvement of system performance.