Volume 9, Number 1 • January/February 2001

Emergency Vehicle Warning System Tested

A system developed for E-Views, Inc., with the help of the Technology Affiliates Program at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena has been approved for testing in Monrovia, California. The city council has approved an agreement with E-Views to develop and implement an Emergency Vehicle Intersection Early Warning System that will alert drivers to approaching emergency vehicles to reduce the potential for traffic collisions.

The E-Views system involves the installation of transponders in several police and fire emergency vehicles and the installation of visual display boards on traffic signal mastarms above the centers of the intersections in Monrovia, California.

The transponders will communicate via microwave with receivers on the display boards. As the emergency vehicle approaches the intersections, the police officer or firefighter activates the transponder, which automatically turns the traffic light to yellow, then red, for cross traffic.

The intersections’ visual warning display signs will also be activated and approaching drivers will see bright flashing vehicle warning symbols on the displays informing them of the direction from which emergency traffic is approaching, from as far as 3,500 feet. The lighted icons will appear to move across the displays synchronized with the actual emergency vehicle’s movement.

Monrovia Chief of Police Joe Santoro, reporting to the City Council on the project, said, "When responding to emergencies with red lights and sirens, emergency vehicles present a serious traffic hazard to themselves and other vehicles and pedestrians while passing against traffic through an intersection. Confusion, inattention, mobile phones, car radios, hearing impairment, distracting children and failure to hear sirens and see flashing lights are just a few of the many causes of serious accidents that result in multi-million-dollar lawsuits against cities and states."

Santoro said that in the United States alone, more than 156,000 accidents involving emergency vehicles occurred at intersections from the early 1980s to 1995, resulting in 6,550 deaths. National Safety Board statistics show that 40 percent of firefighters killed in the line of duty died in accidents on the way to an incident. The majority of these accidents are at intersections.

In 1997, Santoro reported, more than 15,000 accidents with emergency vehicles responding to emergency calls occurred in the United States, resulting in 8,000 injuries, 500 fatalities and millions of dollars in liability claims and vehicle repairs.

Through JPL’s Technology Affiliates Program, large and small businesses can work with JPL engineers to solve specific tasks. Upon joining this innovative program, E-Views, formerly E-Lite Limited, partnered with JPL engineers with specialized expertise to solve engineering design issues. These included not only E-Views’ customized transponders, but also comprehensive designs that blend with existing city communications infrastructures.

The Technology Affiliates Program is just one of several JPL technology transfer programs designed to bring the benefits of the space program to American industry.

For more information, visit the Commercial Technology Program’s Web site at http://techtransfer.jpl.nasa.gov or contact Conrad Foster, technical group supervisor at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (818/354-5070) Conrad.Foster@jpl.nasa.gov. Please mention you read about it in Innovation.