Mobile-based Routes Network Analysis for Emergency Response Using an Enhanced Dijkstra's Algorithm and AHP.

In emergencies cases, the main problem is how to arrive to an incident location in a minimum time. In such cases, using the classical distance based routing techniques does not always provide the optimal path in the time needed. In this paper, we present an enhanced routing technique which is based on Dijkstra's algorithm and Analytical Hierarchical Processing (AHP). Eight impendence factors that cause latency in emergency situations are analyzed using the AHP technique to give an overall weight for every road in Greater Cairo Region (GCR) road network. Then, the classical Dijkstra's algorithm applied on the weighted road network to give the best path between any two nodes in the network. The eight impedance factors considered are: Road Length, Travel Time, Road Type, Road Width, Velocity Limits, Traffic Volume, Mass Density, and Junction Delay. The suggested routing approach is implemented as a mobile application, and a comparison with the classical Dijkstra's algorithm is performed. The results show that the enhanced routing technique is more reliable than the classical one and more suitable for emergencies situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]