Curbside Pick-up and Drop-off for patients

Product Used: Route Optimization API | Directions API

Background

An NEMT provider operates in a large metropolitan area, transporting patients with limited mobility to medical facilities for routine check-ups, dialysis, physical therapy, and other treatments. Many of these patients rely on wheelchairs, walkers, or need assistance getting in and out of the vehicle. In some cases, patients are elderly or have other conditions that make moving across uneven or unsafe surfaces difficult.

Problem Statements

The NEMT provider wants to solve for:

Limited Mobility: Patients with wheelchairs or walkers need to be picked up and dropped off at accessible, flat surfaces (curbside), as they cannot navigate obstacles like steps, cross roads, or parking lots far from the building entrance.
Time and Safety Issues: If the driver parks in a location that requires the patient to traverse a long or uneven distance, it can lead to delays, increased risk of injury (tripping or falling), and dissatisfaction among patients and caretakers.
Compliance with Accessibility Regulations: NEMT providers need to adhere to strict regulations, ensuring safe and convenient curbside pickup/drop-off, especially for Medicaid and Medicare patients.

Solution

NextBillion.ai Route Optimization API with a curbside arrival feature can ensure that NEMT vehicles always arrive at the most accessible point for the patient, whether at a home, medical facility, or treatment center. This feature helps drivers position their vehicles in safe, accessible spots, ensuring patients can enter or exit the vehicle with minimal effort.

Enable curbside arrival

The NEMT providers can use the Nextbillion.ai Route Optimization API to always plan for curbside arrival in an comprehensive, optimized route plan or use the Directions API to simply generate an efficient route when the pick-up / drop-off sequence is predetermined.

Arrive Curbside during Route Optimization

Use approaches parameter to specify how a vehicle should approach a given location. A sample configuration for 4 locations will be as follows:

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"locations": {
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       "id": 1,
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       "location": ["34.06675919,-118.30620984", "34.04268850,-118.28191077", "34.03434239,-118.28358834", "34.04238041,-118.23817754"],
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       "approaches":["curb", "curb", "curb", "curb"]
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}

Check out the Sample API requests for the complete Route Optimization API request.

Get Directions for arriving Curbside

Use approaches parameter to specify how a vehicle should approach a given location. A sample configuration for 4 locations will be as follows:

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approaches=curb;curb;curb;curb

Check out the Sample API requests for the complete Directions API request.

Sample API requests and responses

Here are complete sample JSON requests that we built both for Route Optimization API and Directions API to configure curbside approaches.

Route Optimization API request

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curl --location 'https://api.nextbillion.io/optimization/v2?key=<your_api_key>' --header 'Content-Type: application/json' --data  '{...}'

Route Optimization API response

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{
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    "description": "Curbside Route Optimization Example",
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    "result": "{...}",
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    "status": "Ok",
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    "message": ""
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}

Directions API request

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curl --location 'https://api.nextbillion.io/directions/json?origin=34.083950,-118.318640&destination=34.090425,-118.338933&approaches=curb;curb;curb;curb&mode=car&waypoints=34.054927,-118.323726,34.075525,-118.361588,34.076350,-118.338519&key=<your_api_key>'

Directions API response

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{
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    "status": "Ok",
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    "routes": "[...]"
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}

From both these responses, we can see that the routes approached the specified locations from the curbside. By ensuring that vehicles always arrive at accessible locations, the provider reduces risks, enhances the patient experience, and ensures timely medical appointments.