Yongin City Establishes 'Metropolitan Emergency Vehicle Priority Signal System' Eliminating City-County Boundaries

Ambulance and Fire Truck Travel Time Reduced by More Than Half
"Expecting Golden Time Secured for Patient Transport and Fire Suppression"

It has been found that expanding the 'priority signal system for emergency vehicles' such as ambulances, which frontline local governments are rushing to introduce, to a metropolitan level significantly improves operational efficiency.

According to Yongin City in Gyeonggi Province on the 2nd, a demonstration of the 'metropolitan priority signal system for emergency vehicles,' scheduled to be introduced for emergency patient transport on the 30th of last month, showed that patient transport time was reduced by more than half.

Conceptual diagram of Yongin City's 'Metropolitan Emergency Vehicle Priority Signal System.' [Image source=Yongin City]

The 'metropolitan priority signal system for emergency vehicles' is an advanced signaling system that helps emergency vehicles dispatched across city and county boundaries during large fires or critical situations to receive priority signals without stopping at red lights, enabling them to move quickly to their destinations.

The metropolitan system introduced by the city was prepared in response to requests from local fire stations to expand the existing system, which had been operated only within the region, to neighboring areas.

The demonstration was conducted by setting a scenario of transporting a patient from Gangnam Hospital located in Singal-dong, Giheung-gu, Yongin City, to the Emergency Medical Center at Ajou University Hospital in Suwon City, a distance of 6.6 km, with participation from Yongin City, Suwon City, the police, and fire departments. According to the travel time measurement results, the transport time, which took 16 minutes and 13 seconds before applying the system, was reduced by 55% to 7 minutes and 20 seconds after applying the system built by Yongin City.

The city plans to analyze the test operation results to enhance system efficiency, and once the standard specifications for the 'metropolitan priority signal system for emergency vehicles' are finalized in September, it intends to apply the system starting in October.

Along with this, by October, the city plans to convert 400 existing offline signal controllers to online signals and prepare for smooth operation of the metropolitan system by improving the signal system during commuting hours in consultation with the police station.

Hwang Jun-gi, the 2nd Deputy Mayor of Yongin City, said, "With the establishment of the metropolitan priority system for emergency vehicles, emergency vehicles crossing local government boundaries during disasters such as large fires can secure the golden time," adding, "In particular, it will greatly help save precious lives by quickly transporting critical patients to nearby large hospitals where regional emergency medical centers are installed."

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