Incheon Emergency Vehicles Guided by 'Green Light' to Destination... Protecting the Golden Time

Incheon City is establishing a signal system that allows emergency vehicles to reach their destinations quickly without waiting at traffic signals, aiming to secure the golden time.

The city announced that, in collaboration with the Incheon Metropolitan Police Agency, it will introduce the country's first emergency vehicle priority signal service and provide it citywide starting from the 25th.

This service enables emergency vehicles to continuously receive green signals from the dispatch location to the destination. Not only for fire dispatches but also for transporting severely injured patients from areas such as Seo-gu or Gyeyang-gu, green signals will be provided to the regional trauma center located in Namdong-gu to ensure rapid arrival.

The city expects that the introduction of the priority signal service will allow them to fully comply with the emergency dispatch golden time (7 minutes for fires and within 1 hour for severe trauma patients).

During the pilot operation from January to March this year, fire dispatch times decreased by 48% during normal hours and by 67% during congested hours, achieving a 100% arrival rate within 7 minutes.

There are two types of emergency vehicle priority signal methods. The 'on-site control method' immediately changes the signal to green at the fire station or nearby intersections when an emergency vehicle is dispatched, and the 'center control method' extends the green signal from after the intersection to the destination as the emergency vehicle passes through the signals. These two methods are integrated to automatically control the signals.

The emergency vehicle’s terminal automatically inputs the dispatch location, and general drivers’ navigation systems display a message indicating that priority signals are operating at intersections along the emergency vehicle’s route.

Emergency Vehicle Priority Signal System
[Photo by Incheon City]

The city expects that this service will significantly reduce the risk of accidents during emergency dispatches while adhering to the golden time.

On the same day, the city also opened a comprehensive traffic control center based on an Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) and began joint operation with the Incheon Metropolitan Police Agency.

An official from Incheon City stated, "Incheon is the first to have a comprehensive traffic control center jointly operated by a local government and the police," adding, "We expect this to reduce social costs and traffic accidents through effective traffic management."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.