Using Evolution Strategies to Reduce Emergency Services Arrival Time in Case of Accident

A critical issue, especially in urban areas, is the occurrence of traffic accidents, since it could generate traffic jams. Additionally, these traffic jams will negatively affect to the rescue process, increasing the emergency services arrival time, which can determine the difference between life or death for injured people involved in the accident. In this paper, we propose four different approaches addressing the traffic congestion problem, comparing them to obtain the best solution. Using V2I communications, we are able to accurately estimate the traffic density in a certain area, which represents a key parameter to perform efficient traffic redirection, thereby reducing the emergency services arrival time, and avoiding traffic jams when an accident occurs. Specifically, we propose two approaches based on the Dijkstra algorithm, and two approaches based on Evolution Strategies. Results indicate that the Density-Based Evolution Strategy system is the best one among all the proposed solutions, since it offers the lowest emergency services travel times.