Aiding resource optimisation for emergency service providers

A regional emergency service operating in the UK responds to over 300,000 reported incidents per year over a large geographical area. Data relating to the location and type of incidents can provide key insights into the efficiency of the service’s incident response.

Edge Analytics was commissioned to analyse incident data to provide recommendations on how the service’s ‘response hubs’ could be optimally located, relative to where emergency and non-emergency incidents occur.

Edge’s suite of optimisation models provide solutions to complex geographical location problems: location optimisation, territory optimisation and geographical clustering. Edge fed its proprietary software with incident data and drive-time information to produce a range of alternative scenario outcomes. These include:

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• ​Scenarios to identify optimal locations – in terms of minimising overall drive-times – for different numbers of response hubs.

• Coverage scenarios to identify how many response hubs would be required and where would they be located if all reported incidents were to be serviced from a location within a specified drive-time.

• A range of scenarios identifying optimal locations considering equalisation of workloads and capacity constraints.

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The analysis provided a range of possible alternative outcomes for the emergency service to consider as it seeks to optimise facilities and resources for the future.