APPLICATION OF GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN EMERGENCY PLANNING : A Case Study of the Saudi Red Crescent Society Centers in the City of Jeddah

Abstract

Emer gency services , which co mmonly include Ambulance, Fire and Police services have geo graphical distribution cha racteristics of request of ser vice on one hand, and a system of facilities deployed to respond to that request. on the other. The purpose of this thesi s is to discu ss and anal y/ c the ap plication of Geo graphical Infor mation Systems (GIS) in eme rgency planning, Wi th a specific interest on am bulanc e services that arc co mmon ly known in Sa udi Arabia as Saudi Red Cresce nt Socie ty Centers (SRCSCs ). For this purpose , the existing service provi sion were examined hy classifying the inciden ts locations lor the month of Rajah in the year 1421 . and then evalua t ing the ex isting centers catchment areas Th e fol lowing ana lytical tool was to compare the incidernx class ification with the pre vious mentio ned evaluation. The present research has proved that there IS a defi ciency in the spat ial provis ion or SR CSC:, in Jcdda b cit y in four categories. population within service limi t, area. build ings number. and units number. Accord ingly, a part icular stud y area was selected ill the C ity of Jcddah . Issu es at micro level were 10 propose a codi ng system for the study area . as wcll as iden tifying the optimum route to the Incident location. This optimum route was compared to the actual route being used by the ambul ance vehicle. The study at this micro level has proved that the op timum route identified by Arcview G IS was less by 277< of the u mr of tilt' actual amb ulance vehicle route. In hot" ana lytica l level s, macro and micro. GIS was very powerful to input. update and manipulate the data continuous!y.