CNN Central News & Networks / ITDC India ePress / ITDC News /Agencies/ Bhopal: Noida. A special arrangement has now been launched in Noida and Greater Noida to prevent ambulances carrying critical patients and people injured in road accidents to hospitals from getting stuck in traffic jams. Gautam Buddh Nagar Police has launched ‘Operation FAST’ (Fast Ambulance Seamless Transition) for this purpose. Under the initiative, ambulances will be provided traffic assistance 24 hours a day. Police have issued a special helpline number, 9218981716, for this.
Traffic will be managed from the control room. Under Operation FAST, an Ambulance Traffic Facilitation Cell is being set up in the traffic police control room. Ambulance drivers, hospital control rooms or dispatchers will be able to contact the helpline and provide the vehicle’s current location, destination hospital and proposed route. The control room will then alert traffic police personnel deployed on the relevant route.
Before the ambulance reaches key intersections, traffic will be regulated and the route cleared. If required, temporary changes in traffic signals, regulation of vehicles coming from the opposite direction and arrangements for alternative routes will also be made. As the ambulance moves ahead, traffic will be cleared in advance at the next intersections as well. This has been named the ‘Rolling Traffic Clearance Mechanism’.
A 12-kilometre journey was completed in 10 minutes during the trial. To test the effectiveness of the arrangement, a trial was conducted with an empty ambulance during busy hours. According to police, the distance of about 12 kilometres from Chilla Border to Max Hospital and Fortis Hospital was covered on both routes in around 10 minutes. However, the test was conducted with an empty ambulance. In an actual emergency, travel time will depend on traffic and road conditions.
Hospitals and ambulance operators have been connected. The initiative, launched under the direction of Police Commissioner Lakshmi Singh, includes the district’s major government and private hospitals, ambulance service providers and emergency dispatch centres. Drivers will also be informed about the arrival of an ambulance through the public announcement system.
Police have appealed to citizens to immediately give ambulances a safe passage when they see one on the road, not to block the way by stopping vehicles at intersections, and to follow the instructions of traffic police. The objective of the initiative is to ensure timely medical care for critical patients and accident victims and to reduce life-threatening delays caused by traffic jams.
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