Cluster Analysis Considering the Transportation Infrastructure for the Emergency Medical Service in Disaster Response

Pre-Hospital Emergency Medical Service (EMS) is the function for the provision of immediate and appropriate aid to a patient in emergencies. As part of the traditional triad first responders, EMS plays an important role in disaster response. In this work, the dependency of the EMS functioning on the transportation infrastructure is considered. The Geographic Information System (GIS) serves as a tool for the service area analysis and EMS demand coverage to assess the capacity of EMS facilities before and after of the disaster. The objective of this research is to improve the effectiveness of EMS after the disaster by applying the network-based clustering to determine the on-post EMS facilities for temporary emergency medical services. The analytical result is expected to facilitate decision making, and to serve as a benchmark for the planning of post-disaster EMS.