Optimizing Ambulance Allocations for A0 Emergency Calls in The Netherlands

After the recent introduction of the new emergency call category, A0, the Dutch Emergency Medical System (EMS) would face large losses in service levels if no adjustments were made on the availability of their resources. The National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) wanted to know how to avoid this. In this Thesis, we explore the use of an Erlang Loss-based model to generate optimal allocations of ambulances to a given city. In particular, we test our model in the region of Groningen, and use synthetic data generated based on publicly available regional statistics. A comprehensive analysis of different scenarios were considered, and an optimal allocation strategy for the Groningen region was determined, demonstrating the efficacy of our model as a tool to increase service levels through ambulance allocations.