Ambulances aim to get to emergency medical situations quickly to provide care and save lives. Complicated decisions need to be made rapidly about which ambulance should respond to each incident, under dynamic conditions of uncertainty. The Data Awareness for Sending Help (DASH) project explores the potential impact of integrating new and emerging data sources on emergency response and wider policy.

This new data includes traffic conditions, air pollution and population mobility, which could be considered to better inform decisions about ambulance dispatch, with the long term goal of reducing response times.

Researchers in the DASH project have reported that sharing this data could be crucial for ambulances to respond more quickly in life-or death situations.

In December 2018, the London Assembly Health Committee recommended that the Mayor should make the DASH project’s suggested new data initiatives a focus of renewed efforts to support the London Ambulance Service.