Modelling an emergency vehicle early-warning system using real-time feedback

Emergency vehicles, while usually equipped with warning sirens and/or beacons, are still often impeded by other traffic and involved in numerous collisions. An effective warning system for alerting other vehicles that an emergency vehicle is approaching is therefore crucial. Current research is investigating the use of wireless communication from emergency vehicles to warn other traffic. However, communication in dynamic wireless networks is not reliable. In this paper, we propose a novel emergency vehicle early-warning system that relies on wireless technology to inform other vehicles of the arrival of emergency vehicles, and returns feedback in real-time when communication degrades. When such a situation happens, emergency vehicles are informed that some vehicles may not have been warned and should therefore slow down to negotiate traffic safely. We describe how such a system is built with Comhordú, a coordination model for wireless networks.