Chair: Prof Vania Ceccato (KTH)
This session reports findings of the research project Blue light in green surroundings: Challenges and opportunities for emergency and rescue services in rural Sweden, Funded by FORMAS, GRANT 2016-01424.
Comparing planned and response times for fire services in Sweden
Speaker: Tobias Andersson Granberg, Linköping University, Sweden, Email: tobias.andersson.granberg@liu.se
When planning the location and allocation of emergency response resources, rough models are commonly used for estimating call out times, travel times, availability and other factors that will affect the response time. In this work, the results of such models are compared to real, historical response times for fire and rescue services. The study is made on a national level, for Sweden, and geographical differences are analysed.
A critical perspective on ambulance service ability areas in Sweden
Speaker: Jacob Hassler, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, Email: jahass@kth.se
In this presentation I will present preliminary results of a study that critically investigate the ambulance services in southern Sweden by employing spatial analysis in a geographical information system (GIS). By using response times as an indicator of serviceability, areas that are under-serviced, i.e. outside of a set response time threshold, will be identified. Data from Statistics Sweden, The Swedish Transport Administration, The Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions and other secondary sources are combined in the study to better assess which socioeconomic characteristics these areas have and how ambulance serviceability differ between urban and rural areas.
Police accessibility in Sweden: An analysis of the spatial arrangement of police services, Vania Ceccato, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, vania.ceccato@abe.kth.se
In this presentation I will report results of a study about the distribution of police stations in Sweden. Open access data and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) underlie the methodology. Results show that, despite regional differences in population density, a large majority of the population has less than a 20-min drive to the nearest police station. However, residents of remote areas may have to travel more than 2 h to access uncommon services. We discuss policy implications in the Swedish context, and suggests further research for understanding the supply of police services in other sparsely populated countries.