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Optimal route analysis using GIS
D. Thirumalaivasan Senior Lecturer in Civil Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering, Anna University. dtvasan@annauniv.edu Prof. V. Guruswamy Honorary Director, Centre for GIS Applications, Anna University. gtzirsvg@md4.net.in Abstract
Chennai City is the fourth largest city in India, covering an areal extent of 1167 square kilometers of which the Chennai Municipal Administration area extends over 172 Square Kilometers. The city is continuously growing in terms of population in geometric progression. The city being a hub of commercial and business activities is facing ever-increasing vehicular traffic. This has resulted in multifaceted traffic problems such as accidents, peak hour congestion etc., The road network of Chennai city is of Radial Pattern having major highways to the North, West and Southwest. The other major roads being the arterial road along the coast and the road parallel to NH4. However, the existing road network in the city is unable to accommodate the present day heavy vehicular traffic. This poses a serious problem while deploying emergency services such as Ambulance and Fire Services where Time Factor plays a crucial role. To find optimal route between two given points, either the shortest path between them or the route having minimum travel time is to be selected. For emergency services, such as Ambulance and Fire Services, route having minimum travel time is to be preferred over the route having the shortest distance. With this objective of optimizing travel time, the various Impedance Factors that play a significant role in deciding the travel time such as Volume of Traffic, type of road, road width, number of junctions, turns etc., are analyzed in determining the optimal route having the minimum travel time. The ROUTE module available in Arc-Info is used for the Road Network analysis and the resulting routes for various origin and destination points are analyzed. In order to have realistic applications, the Ambulance locations of Trauma Care Centre were assumed as starting points and the nearest hospital locations to the accident site were taken as the destinations. The results obtained for various ambulance locations and accidents spots are presented. Introduction Worldwide, the transportation problems faced by various nations have increased manifold, necessitating search for methods or alternatives that ensure efficient, feasible and faster means of transport. This is all the more true in a country like India, where in the population growth in metros is increasing significantly. Various situations, particularly emergency situations demand a method that can ensure speedy transportation e.g. Ambulance Services, Fire Services etc. Speedy transportation in such circumstances saves valuable human lives. Remote Sensing and GIS play a vital role in transportation and urban planning applications. In this paper an attempt is made to find optimal route for ambulance and fire services based on shortest travel time using GIS. For a given origin and destination, one is always tempted to use the shortest distance route. But, this need not always be the best route, in emergency situations, wherein shortest travel time is to be preferred over shortest distance. A shorter route does not always translate to shorter travel time, because it may be narrow in width or it may have higher volume of traffic, or more numbers of signals and turns and so on. Study Area The study area was decided, based on the ambulance service network of Trauma Care Consortium, which mainly covers the central part of Chennai city. TRAUMA CARE CONSORTIUM (TCC) is a unique not for profit, public charitable service and the first of its kind in India and makes available on demand to residents of Chennai City, fully equipped ambulances for emergency movement of road accident victims to hospitals. This service is operational effective since mid April 1996 and until date has been instrumental in assisting over 1500 road accident victims in Chennai City. The Additional Director General of Police and Commissioner of Police of Greater Chennai have granted permission to operate this service in conjunction with the Chennai City Traffic Police. They have positioned ambulances, which are wireless linked, at key locations within the city, and these ambulances are deployed to rescue the road accident victims on receiving information regarding the place of accident. The following table illustrates the statistics like time of day during which, the accidents have occurred during the period 1996-99.
Nearly 32 percentages of the accidents, have occurred during the peak hours of traffic and necessitates the need to have optimal route analysis so as to reach the hospital in quick time from the accident spot. The study area extends from Arcot Road, Peters Road stretch in the north to Kathipara junction of G.S.T. Road, Sardar Patel Road stretch in the South. The entire east-west stretch of the city is included with in the above north - south limits. The study area is shown in fig.01. 
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