The Utah Department of Transportation recently partnered with Brigham City to equip its ambulances and fire trucks with vehicle-to-everything or V2X technology that provides traffic signal pre-emption to those vehicles during emergencies.
[Above photo by Utah DOT]
The agency said that technology can extend green lights and even change traffic signals from red to green for ambulances and fire trucks during active emergency calls.
Brigham City Fire Chief Brandon Thueson said a tragic crash a year ago involving a city ambulance at a busy intersection that left a paramedic injured and another vehicle damaged beyond repair spurred this V2X collaboration.
“The partnership with Utah DOT was a no-brainer,” he explained in a statement. “Our first responders face challenges every day, but one of our biggest hazards is just getting to the scene of an incident. Seconds are a matter of life and death in our line of work. Utah DOT’s technology has enabled us to respond faster and more safely during emergency situations.”
For nearly a decade, Utah DOT emphasized that it has pioneered signal preemption for its snowplows to clear roads faster, improve travel times, and enhance driver safety. With hundreds of intersections already equipped with smart signal technology, adding Brigham City’s emergency vehicles to the existing system made sense, noted Blaine Leonard, transportation technology engineer for the agency.
“Smart V2X technologies create a digital seatbelt that provides an extra layer of protection for the traveling public,” he said. “Extending our existing technologies to cities helps first responders save lives and makes the entire transportation system function better for everyone.”
Leonard added that the Utah DOT-Brigham City partnership makes Utah one of the first states in the country to implement this technology for emergency medical services. While off-the-shelf signal preemption technology has been commercially available to cities for years, Utah DOT is collaborating with its local communities to implement it on a regional scale – which allows Brigham City emergency vehicles to transport critical patients to hospitals across the region based on need, the agency said.
“When someone is having a life-threatening emergency, every second can change the odds of survival and recovery,” said Jami Cottle, CEO of MountainStar Healthcare’s Brigham City Community Hospital. “Anything that helps patients reach our doors faster in a medical emergency can make a meaningful difference in the outcomes we’re able to deliver. This capability will save lives and enhance healing for our community.”
Utah DOT noted that it plans to expand V2X technologies to other cities statewide, building a connected vehicle network that already spans hundreds of intersections statewide. As more communities join the network, first responders will be able to move through intersections more safely and reach emergencies faster, the agency emphasized.
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