Enabling Emergency Reassignments

Background

While NEMT traditionally focuses on non-emergency transportation, the industry still faces urgent or time-sensitive scenarios - caused by missed appointments, appointment reschedule, or vehicle breakdowns - that can mimic emergency situations in terms of requiring a fast response or resource reallocation.

These emergency-like scenarios necessitate the ability to swiftly reassign vehicles and manage fleets in real time, making it essential for NEMT providers to have the operational flexibility to handle such dynamic situations.

An NEMT provider operates a fleet of vehicles in a medium-sized city, transporting patients with chronic conditions such as dialysis, cancer treatments, and physical therapy. One morning, a vehicle en route to pick up a dialysis patient breaks down. The patient is due for their appointment within an hour, and missing this appointment could significantly impact their health, as dialysis is a time-sensitive procedure. The provider must act quickly to ensure the patient is picked up and transported in time, avoiding a missed appointment.

Problem Statement

Identify the nearest available vehicle: With all other drivers in the fleet fully occupied or far away, the dispatch team needs to find the nearest available vehicle to take over the trip that the broken vehicle was supposed to make.
Ensuring Trip is completed using the re-assigned vehicle: The dispatch team needs to ensure that the reassigned vehicle successfully picks up the patient and delivers them to their appointment on time, while keeping the patient informed.

Solution

NextBillion.ai Live Tracking API’s ability to monitor fleet vehicles in real time provides a dynamic way for NEMT operators to overcome fleet challenges and maintain high service standards in the face of operational disruptions under time-sensitive conditions.

Identify nearest available vehicle

Live Tracking API allows you to search for all available assets / vehicles in a given area using its Search endpoints. In our use-case, we can use a Around Search to get all nearest assets within a given radius of the patient’s pickup location. Any assets available within a 5 km radius should be able to reach the patient's pickup location fairly quickly to be able to honor the appointment due within an hour.

A sample asset search request would be:

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https://api.nextbillion.io/skynet/search/around?center=33.67005099,-117.77051522&radius=5000&key={your_api_key}

Real-time tracking and scheduled alerts for new trip

Once a vehicle is identified, we can track it in real time by querying the Tracking Last location of Asset endpoint at regular intervals while using the new vehicle’s asset ID at the time of submitting requests.

Following is a sample tracking request:

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https://api.nextbillion.io/skynet/asset/new_asset_LA123/location/list?key={your_api_key}

We can also get alerted when the vehicle enters and exits a geofence surrounding the patient’s pickup location and treatment center. Check out the following section for request payloads for achieving the same.

Sample API requests and solutions

Here is a sample JSON request that we built for searching all available assets within a specified radius and then setting up monitors to receive alerts for important event during the trip.

Search nearby vehicles

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curl --location '[https://api.nextbillion.io/skynet/search/around?key=](https://api.nextbillion.io/skynet/search/around?key=)<your_api_key>&center=34.02411323,-118.27154194&radius=5000'

In case special regions need to be searched for nearby assets, please visit the Bound Search and Polygon Search endpoints to modify the above request.

API Response for nearby vehicles

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{
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    "status": "Ok",  
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    "msg": "",  
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    "data": '{...}'
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}

Track the latest location of the van

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curl --location '[https://api.nextbillion.io/skynet/asset/683a3672-8eb3-4ec2-a1b9-1bdc2743d491/location/last?key=](https://api.nextbillion.io/skynet/asset/683a3672-8eb3-4ec2-a1b9-1bdc2743d491/location/last?key=)<your_api_key>'

Set up Monitors via API request

Set up a monitor for the asset to trigger alerts based on its movement.

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curl --location 'https: //api.nextbillion.io/skynet/monitor?key=<your_api_key>'   
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--header 'Content-Type: application/json'   
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--data '{  
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    "type": "enter_and_exit",  
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    "geofence_config": {  
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        "geofence_ids": [  
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            "7d1b861c-67b8-4128-aef8-179a605263c4"  
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        ]  
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    },  
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    "name": "NEMT Transportation 003",  
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    "description": "Emergency re-assignments",  
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    "match_filter": {  
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        "include_all_of_attributes": {  
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"driver_contact_no": "321-902-838",  
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"driver_name": "James Smith",  
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"license": "4 ES 7167",  
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"vehicle_type": "minivan"  
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        }  
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    }  
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}'

Record Monitor ID

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{  
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"status": "Ok",  
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"data": {  
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"id": "dae3b4bd-2402-4b53-83dd-c094b79d02cc"  
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}  
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}

Receive alerts

Set up a webhook to receive alerts as the asset moves and qualifies “Monitor” criteria.

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curl --location --request PUT 'https://api.nextbillion.io/skynet/config?key=<your_api_key>'   
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--header 'Content-Type: application/json'   
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--data '{ "webhook":[""https://my-company/api/test_webhook""] }'

We see that the Live Tracking API enabled an NEMT provider to swiftly manage an unexpected vehicle breakdown and prevent the patient from missing a critical medical appointment. The ability to monitor fleet vehicles in real time, reassign trips efficiently under time-sensitive conditions helps ensure continuous service delivery, even when unexpected problems arise.