A Novel Early Alert System for Emergency Vehicle Proximity

Private driver situational awareness is critical to avoid vehicle crashes and related injuries/deaths associated with emergency vehicles transiting to or from emergency incident locations. The recent widespread use of wireless devices (e.g. GPS, smart phones) by private vehicle drivers brings a new interface and provides a great potential to enhance the driver's situational awareness by allowing first responders and emergency vehicles to send out early alerts to private motor vehicles in the immediate vicinity of the responder. The primary objective of this proposed effort is to develop innovative technology to enhance the private driver situational awareness to the emergency vehicles. Toward this objective, Intelligent Automation, Inc. (IAI), along with its partners, proposes to develop a novel Early AleRt System for Emergency Vehicle Proximity (EARS4EVP). The system will fully exploit the increasing widespread use of personal wireless devices by drivers of motor vehicles; incorporate efficient database processing and even future advanced communication technology, to provide an integrated solution to alert drivers of the proximity of emergency vehicles.