MAP OF AMBULANCE ACCESSIBILITY OF MOUNTAINOUS AREAS WITH USE OF GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS, SUSKI DISTRICT, POLAND.

ABSTRACT

Scattered settlement in the rural and mountain regions is typical. Technical conditions of roads is a key factor deciding on the possibility of accessing certain locations by ambulance in such areas. The objective of this study is the assessment of the passability of mountain roads within the scope of ambulance access with the use of GIS and the national cartographic database. From the roads in the district, the authors selected unpaved roads, with the surface of bare ground. Then, the buildings located at the distance of over 100, 150 and 200 m from paved roads as well as the other buildings which pose the largest degree of difficulty to access These were considered to be objects located more than 150 m from paved roads and more than 50 m from dirt roads. There are over 45 thousand buildings within the district. 806 buildings are located over 200 m from paved roads, 486 of which are residential buildings. There is no road access to 40 residential buildings (located at least 150 m from paved roads and over 50 m from unpaved roads). The result of the study is an ambulance accessibility map. In the case of receiving notifications of accidents occurring at the locations marked as “difficult to access”, the dispatcher should consider sending off-road mountain rescue or fire squad vehicles along with the ambulance because the probability of problems with access is very high.

Keywords: cartographic database, GIS, rescue vehicles, mountain remote terrain