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VTOL aircraft in emergency planning and management: a model for a helipad network
Author(s) -
Caprì Salvatore,
Ignaccolo Matteo,
Inturri Giuseppe
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
disasters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.744
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1467-7717
pISSN - 0361-3666
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-7717.2008.01063.x
Subject(s) - poison control , human factors and ergonomics , injury prevention , occupational safety and health , medical emergency , suicide prevention , aeronautics , disaster planning , engineering , emergency management , transport engineering , medicine , political science , law , pathology
The scientific literature regarding HEMS (Helicopter Emergency Medical Service) planning lacks a method for defining optimal sites for helipads that takes into account risk distribution and hospital location. Such a method could minimise overall rescue time in emergency situations. In this paper a method that supports the decisions taken by disaster planners and managers is developed, focusing on the quantification of necessary air resources for the management of some probable calamities. Given a region characterised by a natural and non‐natural disaster risk map, along with a comprehensive transport system (also characterised by a risk map), a set of emergency destinations (hospitals), a set of heliports/helipads dislocated on the territory and a number of available HEMS rotorcraft, the aim of the paper is to assess the adequacy of the VTOL/FATO (Vertical Take‐Off and Landing/Final Take‐Off and Landing Area) system in order to deal with a set of possible emergencies.