Citation

Vasudevan V, Singh P, Basu S. Traffic Injury Prev. 2016; 17(7): 699-704.

Affiliation

Department of Civil Engineering Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur Kanpur , UP 208016 , India.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/15389588.2016.1163689

PMID

27028660

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: India has been slow in implementing a central Emergency Medical Services (EMS) system across the country. '108 services' is one of the most popular services that is functional under Public Private Partnership (PPP) model. Limited available literature show that in spite of having access to services, many of the traffic crash victims are transported using private vehicles. The objective of this study is to understand the effectiveness of '108 services' from traffic safety perspective.

METHOD: Questionnaire survey is conducted to understand the awareness of the EMS and their function. Using traffic related fatalities as the dependent variable, a fixed effect panel data model is developed to analyze the effectiveness of the '108 services' in improving the traffic safety.

RESULTS: The results from the survey show that, in general, people are not aware of the '108 services.' Majority of proportion of the population prefer taking the victim to the hospital using their personal vehicles or by using any other vehicles which are available as compared to calling an ambulance.

RESULTS from panel data analysis show that in spite of having an efficient system, these services failed to make significant improvement in the safety of road users in the states in which their services were subscribed to.

DISCUSSIONS: The lack of awareness of an important safety service is alarming. This could be a major reason for lower utilization of '108 services' for transporting victims of traffic crashes. This paper shows the importance of having efficient awareness campaigns to improve the efficiency of any similar programs which are aimed to enhance safety of a region.

Language: en