Simulation tool to analyse and improve the location of the ambulances' bases in the SEM (Sistema d'Emergències Mèdiques)

The time between an accident happening and an ambulance reaching the accident place is a very delicate and crucial time. The time elapsed between those two events could be the determining factor of whether the injured person gets to live or die. Therefore, that response time of the ambulance assisting in the accident should be as small as possible. The latter reduces a person’s recovery time and makes the difference between the patients having a temporary or long-term disability. The Sistema d’Emergències Mèdiques (SEM) and the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) are working in close collaboration to help SEM come up with a good and efficient system to always locate and well manage their ambulances. This will help SEM in always assigning the ambulance that arrives sooner to a given accident, thus reducing the risks associated with a long response time (such as long-term disabilities, or death). In the Regió Sanitària of Terres de L’Ebre in Catalonia, there are four ambulances and four bases. Currently, each ambulance occupies one base. In this master thesis, we explore the possibilities of stationing the ambulances following a different configuration (e.g., all the ambulance in one base and zero ambulances in the remaining bases, etc.) and check the average response time for each of those configurations in comparison to the current one. The aim of this study is to pick the configuration with the smallest average response time and thus, help with the overall goal of this collaboration between SEM and UPC.