The sudden, high-pitched sound of an emergency vehicle causes unease in most and dread in many others. The siren is synonymous with warning-and hope. However unfortunate, accidents are a common aspect of modern life. And, with our seemingly ever-accelerating lifestyles, so increases their frequency.

Falck Denmark A/S is a private company under contract by the Danish government to provide ambulance and fire fighting services throughout most of the country. The company is part of Group 4 Falck, a safety and security services provider with nearly 150,000 employees in more than 50 countries.

Falck Denmark employs approximately 6,000 personnel in its ambulance and fire service operations and has a fleet of more than 450 ambulances to provide emergency services throughout the country.

The company has a long-held belief in the benefits of new technology that dates back to 1908 when Redningskorpset for København og Frederiksberg A/S, one of the original companies that evolved into Group 4 Falck, implemented the first automobile ambulance service in Denmark. By providing this new and faster facility, Redningskorpset was able to provide better service to those requiring hospital transport.

"The key to operating a successful ambulance company is the ability to respond immediately and effectively to any emergency," states Torben Ruberg, IT director for Falck Denmark. "Mere seconds can mean the difference between life and death in many situations. By implementing GIS and other related technologies, we have reduced emergency response time by 5 to 10 percent."

About two years ago, Falck invested in an automatic vehicle location (AVL) system. The components included the installation of GPS transmitters in each ambulance to record current ambulance positions, GIS software installed in Falck's emergency service centers to track the location of each ambulance, and radio communications to automatically link the GPS and GIS systems.

The biggest problem that Falck faced in the installation was getting the radio system to transmit frequently enough to provide accurate positions of the ambulances. The problem was solved by using a number of small channels in the radio system. This configuration allows four position updates per minute for each vehicle. For example, a vehicle traveling at 120 kilometers per hour, or 75 mph, would move only 500 meters during the 15-second update interval, which is an acceptable tracking range.

Falck chose FleetView, a GIS application developed by Esri software distributor Informi GIS A/S of Denmark, to power its AVL system. Informi developed FleetView with Esri's component libraries MapObjects and NetEngine. MapObjects provides a number of embeddable mapping and GIS components and NetEngine supplies a variety of network capabilities. Falck uses Esri's ArcView in its emergency service centers for its query, display, and analytical capabilities.

"The system that we have developed is really very simple and direct," comments Ruberg. "This is its strength. When an emergency call is received by the police, it is immediately transferred to our dispatchers through the country's public alarm network. We automatically geocode it so that we know exactly where the incident has taken place. Our radio communications system is continuously tracking the locations of all of our ambulances so we can easily determine the ambulance nearest to the incident for immediate dispatch."

For more information, contact Torben Ruberg, IT director, Falck Denmark (e-mail: tr@falck.dk).