Open emergency dispatch

Find the fastest suitable ambulance — across every fleet that will talk to us.

One front door for the caller. Triage sets the care floor. We query private, hospital, and (later) government units for live status and GPS, then assign the minimum ETA that meets class. Start in Kolkata. 108 is a later bolt-on, not day one.

The bar

≤ 8 minutes

First suitable unit arrival from confirmed location — urban Kolkata. If nothing clears 8 minutes, assign best available, escalate, and stay honest about the ETA.

Time-to-assign ≤ 60s
Live ETA to the caller
p50 / p90 arrival by ward, class, and fleet type

Classes the caller can request

Triage sets a floor. A caller may raise class; they cannot drop below it.

PTV

Patient transport. Non-critical, stable transfer.

BLS

Basic life support. Monitoring, oxygen, EMT.

ALS

Advanced life support. Airway, monitor, defibrillator, critical drugs.

ICU

Critical care / ventilator. Highest capability tier.

Call flow

Ingress — number, app, or web. Location (GPS + confirmed address), status, optional class.
Triage — symptoms → minimum class. Honour an explicit upgrade above the floor.
Discover — in-service units, correct class or higher, fresh GPS (or station if GPS missing), ETA in band.
Assign — fastest eligible ETA; escalate if over the 8-minute bar.
Navigate — destination + notes to the crew; live ETA to the caller.
Hand-off — arrival timestamp, hospital preference if known, close. Anonymized timing for the bar.

No payment on the critical path for emergency class. Billing, if any, is post-trip and capped.

Multi-fleet routing

Objective: minimum ETA among eligible units across fleets that opt in with live status.

Private networked fleets (GPS + status API or driver app)
Hospital-owned fleets (including ACLS / ICU dedicated)
Government 102 / 108 — when connected; not required for the first cut

Fairness: no exclusive lock-in. Open protocol for status, assign, and cancel. Prefer open schemas — GeoJSON location, class enum, ETA. Units without live GPS fall back to station-based ETA with a wider uncertainty band, and lose priority against live-GPS peers of the same class.

Open questions

Blockers we will not paper over.

ICU census gap: No reliable citywide count of ICU / ventilator units versus total fleet. Partner survey before promising coverage maps.
GPS on private fleets: Many private vans are phone-dispatched without continuous tracking. v0 either requires GPS for “eligible,” or marks them low-confidence.
Overcharging: Night fleecing remains a known complaint. Publish capped rates (WBCERC-style ceilings) and receipt every trip.

v0 slice

In

Caller app + ops console
Class enum + triage floor
≥1 private + ≥1 hospital partner ingest
Assigner with 8-minute telemetry

Out

Full government CAD
Citywide ICU guarantee
Payments wallet

Follow along

Building in the open. Spec is public; code and partner onboarding come next. If you run a fleet in Kolkata, or want early access as a caller — write.

Email hello@openambulance.com GitHub — coming soon

Opens your mail client. No fake form, no silent drop. Full v0 spec on this site. Broader Kolkata EMS research (Oct 2026) informed the bar and open questions.