Getting someone to the hospital within the ‘Golden Hour’ is often the difference between life and death. While the ideal time taken to transport the accident victim from the spot to the hospital should be eight minutes, the average time taken by an ambulance in the city is 32 minutes, according to a recent market study. And this time often escalates to hours in the metro cities.
While the road traffic density goes up every year and resolving the traffic congestion isn’t something that can be solved overnight, Visakhapatnam based startup Greenline Labs has come up with a technology that works to make emergency services in India more efficient and effective by reducing delays, thereby help save more lives. The startup that is presently incubated at Startup Accelerator India – the joint venture of AP Government and Singapore-based GOVIN Capital – is led by the core team of Sri Vishnu Ayyagari, Sree Charan Aradhyula, Ram Subhash, Santosh Varma, Rohi Joseph and Prasanth Avadhani.
At present, they have developed two devices using Internet of Things (IoT) technology and collaborated with Gayatri Vidya Parishad Hospital for testing the prototype from this month-end. One of the devices is fitted in the ambulance which helps the driver track the location of the accident and reaches the spot from the nearest possible route. When the ambulance is within a radius of 500 to 700 metres to any traffic signal, the device ensures the lights turn green with the help of another device attached to the traffic signals to allow the ambulance to go through without delay.
“Once the prototype is tested, our target is to fix the device to 25 ambulances within the city by the end of October. We are also in talks with EMRI (Emergency Management Research Institute) to fit the devices in their ambulances,” Sri Vishnu Ayyagari, CEO of Greenline Labs, told The Hindu .
The startup has raised seed capital from GOVIN Capital. “We eventually plan to expand our technology across cities like Vijayawada, Hyderabad and other metros in the country. This technology will also eliminate the role of call centres making it more effective,” said Ayyagari, who had won the first prize for this project plan at the Intel IoT B-plan competition held in the city in August last year. A similar technology is being tried by US-based firm Global Traffic Technologies in Bangalore.
Market research
The team did an extensive market research before starting the work on the prototype from May this year. Greenline Labs will also be launching their app next month. The app will have an alert button which when pressed will send an alert to the nearest hospital for the ambulance services.
