title: VTOL aircraft in emergency planning and management: a model for a helipad network.
abstract: The scientific literature regarding HEMS (Helicopter Emergency Medical Service) planning lacks a method for defining optimal sites for helipads that takes into account risk distribution and hospital location. Such a method could minimise overall rescue time in emergency situations. In this paper a method that supports the decisions taken by disaster planners and managers is developed, focusing on the quantification of necessary air resources for the management of some probable calamities. Given a region characterised by a natural and non-natural disaster risk map, along with a comprehensive transport system (also characterised by a risk map), a set of emergency destinations (hospitals), a set of heliports/helipads dislocated on the territory and a number of available HEMS rotorcraft, the aim of the paper is to assess the adequacy of the VTOL/FATO (Vertical Take-Off and Landing/Final Take-Off and Landing Area) system in order to deal with a set of possible emergencies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Catania, Italy. scapri@dica.unict.it
authors.forename: Salvatore
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Caprì
authors.forename: Matteo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ignaccolo
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Inturri
mesh_terms: D017732:Air Ambulances; D003661:Decision Support Techniques; D004189:Disaster Planning; D006801:Humans; D012040:Regional Health Planning; D012802:Sicily