The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged ambulance services like never before. First RESPonse was created to help professionals respond to emergency calls more rapidly through enhanced technology. With support by ESA Space Solutions, the system developed in a Demonstration Project streamlined communication and information sharing throughout the chain of response and reduced call-to-hospital times for patients by up to 17%. 

During the worst months of the COVID-19 pandemic, emergency call centres experienced extremely high rates of urgent medical calls. Coordination of the ambulance response was challenging and made more complex by the changing landscape of medical resources; hospitals were filling up, and temporary emergency facilities were opening.

The First RESPonse (First Rapid Emergency System against Pandemic) project launched in Italy in July 2020, with the aim to improve coordination of the entire process of a medical emergency request: from a patient’s distress call to the point of hospitalisation. 

The project brought together two major players in European emergency service software and telecommunications: GINA Software and Beta 80. Forming a new consortium, the companies achieved complete integration of their products and – supported by ESA – incorporated space technology for enhanced geolocation accuracy and communication coverage. 

Digital links for a faster chain

First RESPonse digitally connects each link in the emergency chain of response. It begins with an app on a citizen’s smartphone, through which they can call for help, see when help has been dispatched and when it is due to arrive. Ambulance dispatchers in the call centre have a constant digital connection to their crews via a workstation. They can keep them updated on the scene and patient’s condition, and the status of the nearest hospital facilities. First responders have a tablet through which they receive up-to-date information about the patient, automatic SatNav to their location and can video consult with a doctor from the field. They can also scan the patient’s ID card so that receiving hospitals know who is coming in, as well as seeing when they are expected. 

The system was piloted by selected ambulance services in Italy and the Czech Republic and used in almost 9,000 incidents. In this pilot project, First RESPonse accelerated the pre-hospital chain by between 12 and 17%. 

Arnaud Runge, Medical Engineer at ESA said: “In a medical emergency every minute counts. Cutting the time it takes an ambulance to reach a critically ill patient, and to get them to hospital, can make a life-saving difference. We’re proud to have enhanced First RESPonse with space technology.”

From pandemic to systemic

Following the successful completion of the pilot, First RESPonse is being promoted to emergency services more widely in Italy and the Czech Republic – where GINA and Beta 80 have most of their customers – and beyond.

The system has been gaining interest at the major international events for emergency services: the European Emergency Number Association Conference and INTERSCHUTZ 2022. 

Martin Ingr from GINA said: “The products and services that were created during the project are aimed to remain sustainable also after the pandemic is overcome. Our goal is that the problems solved through the First RESPonse project become part of the standard operation procedure. The system can be used again against this or other pandemics, during the response to disasters such as earthquakes, as well as improving daily operations of emergency services.”

Being a smart cyclist is far easier when you know somewhere well enough to pick a route that suits you. But once you leave an area you are familiar with, choosing the ideal route can be difficult. Beeline aims to tackle that, making bike journeys safer and more enjoyable with its new Velo 2 device, which uses a combination of space data and crowd-sourced information to provide a selection of route options for each trip.

The best journey in any vehicle is not always the fastest. It may not be the most direct either. Instead, what you consider the ‘best’ route on any given day will depend on a range of parameters, such as your vehicle, your confidence, your familiarity with the area and how urgently you need to get somewhere. This is especially true for cyclists, who not only have access to routes which are inaccessible to motorised vehicles, but who may also prefer to avoid larger roads, even if they are more direct. 

London-based Beeline set out to solve this dilemma by combining satellite Earth observation (EO) and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) location data with feedback from cyclists in a mobile phone app (iOS and Android) as part of an ESA Demonstration Project. The app is linked via Bluetooth to a small device attached to the bike’s handlebars, which provides directions. Beeline has now launched a new enhanced version of its Velo device and app as it expands into new territories. 

Smart cycling with GNSS and EO data

The Velo 2 uses the GNSS data from the user’s phone to ensure that it supplies the correct guidance on when to turn, according to the route chosen by the cyclist from the ones provided on the app at the outset of their journey. Directions are provided via an LCD display on the top of the Velo 2.

Among the EO data sources used for the app are digital elevation models from NASA’s Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) which, along with other EO data, are initially used to predict road characteristics. This function is enhanced over time as more and more Velo users travel along each road, as the device also features buttons where users can rate segments of the route they deem to be positive or negative for cycling, based on their individual judgement. This Velo data is then analysed together with artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to further characterise the quality of the road and improve the overall mapping. This means that every Beeliner around the world plays a part in building better routes.

The Beeline Cycle Routing ESA Demonstration Project started in November 2018 and finished in July 2021. As part of this phase, the team measured journey satisfaction using its app against those proposed by Google and found that Beeline sent users on 67% fewer ‘bad’ roads, with an average journey duration increase of only 6%. Beeline routes were clearly skewed towards cycleways and minor roads.

“The support provided by ESA during the Demonstration Project was vital in order to enable us to develop and test the service, and incorporate the space-derived data, without which our routing system simply wouldn’t work,” said Tom Putnam, Co-Founder of Beeline. “We could have tried to make this work just by using feedback from cyclists. However, we’d need an enormous amount of road rating data to cover every street in all the geographies we aim to cover which would be unattainable. By applying AI to the GNSS based road rating alongside existing Earth observation data we can achieve the coverage we need.”