Site inspection and travel time isochrones for several sites of a large plant fire brigade on the basis of operational data

Our client operates multiple large plant fire departments in Germany. As part of a performance assessment, the customer wanted to examine emergency response times for all sites. niologic analyzed recorded deployment data using the radio systems FMS and Tetra-BOS.

Challenge

Drive time isochrones for service area coverage were created to assess the performance and emergency response times of each fire station. Deployment data for the next 10 to 15 years was made available for location analysis. This was possible thanks to the client’s uniform computer dispatch system and FMS status (4m radio GMS or Tetra-BOS). Based on internal map data (partially not public) and the FMS statuses drive time isochrones for the service area coverage were created.

Procedure

niologic created a network capable of routing based on digital, internal map data, and building data. Later this network was linked to external map data (OpenStreetMap) for public areas. Recently built areas, that were missing in the data set, were digitized within the process and made available to the customer.

Trip times were transmitted via radio and evaluated based on vehicle dispositions from the deployment data. Destinations were matched geographically with building data based on the available addresses.

After that, the distribution of travel times and speeds was created for each building. This was based on the shortest, legal direction. Therefore, we received distributions, fluctuation margins, and expectancy values for each building. For buildings with no past deployments, we used the algorithms of Premergency to carry out an interpolation for the closest buildings.

In the end, we successfully determined isochrones for service area coverage for each building and each fire station, based on the estimated travel times.

Moreover, we created statistics for response times, drive times, and many more. Thereby, we could show that drive times mostly followed a beta distribution.

Result and customer value

Finally, the customer received a detailed map of travel time isochrones for service area coverage, based on existing deployment data, and vehicle dispositions. Additionally, with the isochrones, we could show, that there was no gap in coverage within the service area. This led to a positive outcome of the performance assessment.

The digital maps were made available to the client’s department of infrastructure using a geo server within the browser.