Paramedic PapersHome Operations & systems Predicting ground vs helicopter EMS travel times
Operations & systems
Predicting ground vs helicopter EMS travel times
Development and validation of methods to predict ground- and helicopter-based emergency medical service travel times
Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine · 2026-11-02 · Added 3 November 2026
A modelling study validated open-source routing and historical-data methods for predicting ground and helicopter EMS travel times, achieving R² of 0.79 for ground drive time to scene but only 0.38 for helicopter time to hospital.
- Study type
- Modelling
- Design
- Model development and validation using open-source routing and historical travel times
- Participants
- Not reported
- Main finding
- Best ground EMS models explained R² 0.79 (drive time to location) and 0.70 (to hospital) versus R² 0.46 and 0.38 for helicopter flight times; mean absolute percentage error 18–20% across all methods
- Caveat
- Helicopter times were much harder to predict, and accuracy varies with local geography and data quality
- Bottom line
- Context only
Why it matters in Australia (Medium relevance). HEMS dispatch decisions are made by every Australian service and time-benefit estimation is the crux of helicopter versus ground selection; the open-source tools are there for any service to adapt.
Learning goal
Understand how travel time prediction accuracy shapes my decisions when requesting helicopter transport over ground crews.
More
- Topic: Operations & systems
- Daily scan: 3 November 2026
- Podcast: Paramedic Papers Daily, 3 November 2026
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