Can AI make the fire trucks appear faster?

Good morning. It is Friday. We will look at how an artificial intelligence project could help the fire service reduce response times for firefighters and ambulances. We will also look at Donald Trump's brief testimony during his defamation trial.

Fighting a fire is one thing. Getting firefighters and medical responders to a burning building, or to an address where someone needs help, is another challenge.

That's why the fire department wants to apply artificial intelligence technology to traffic patterns and ultimately help firefighters take the fastest routes.

A project involving research by a consortium of seven universities called C2SMARTER comes amid concerns that traffic is making response times longer. “Every second counts when it comes to emergency response,” said Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh. “Shorter response times are directly linked to better results.”

The department acknowledges that response times have increased and blames traffic on the city's changing streetscape.

A fire department spokeswoman said the average response time for medical emergencies, the calls requiring the most immediate attention, was 7 minutes and 59 seconds last year, 1 minute and 14 seconds slower than in 2013. The response time for what the fire department classifies as “structural fires” – anything other than a forest fire, a car fire or a transit system fire – was 4 minutes and 31 seconds last year, 25 seconds slower than in 2013.

One possible explanation is that fire trucks and ambulances face more obstacles than before. The streetscape is now different, with better protected bicycle and bus lanes and outdoor food stalls. They all take up space on the street, which means there is less room for fire trucks and ambulances to maneuver and less room for regular cars and trucks to get out of the way.

“Travel time – when you can get to the scene – is critical to your firefighting operations or your emergency medical procedures,” said Rebecca Mason, assistant fire commissioner.

But time has become more important lately. Fires involving rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, which power electric bicycles and e-scooters, often start abruptly and spread quickly.

But she said such devices are not the only potential problem firefighters face.

“The modern construction environment has created material situations where fires are much more dangerous than in the past,” she said. “The materials we have are much more susceptible to bursting into flames more quickly.”

C2SMARTER, which is led by the NYU Tandon School of Engineering's transportation center, plans to analyze travel times for emergency vehicles. The researchers will collect real-time traffic data from cameras and sensors, along with data from fire trucks and ambulances and from the navigation app Waze, in a 30-block section of Harlem, from West 110th Street to West 140th Street, west of Frederick. Douglas Blvd. Mason said this area was chosen for research because “we thought it was a good representation of many parts of the city, especially those where traffic congestion occurs.”

Once they've collected the data, the researchers will build a “digital twin,” an automated replica of the area.

Joseph Chowthe deputy director of C2SMARTER and the project's principal investigator, noted that communities like Harlem have been underserved in the past, so they could especially see significant benefits if emergency vehicles answered their 911 calls more quickly.

“What we're trying to replicate” with the digital twin, he said, “is how the vehicles move through that particular neighborhood” — cars, trucks, bicycles, e-bikes and scooters.

C2SMARTER will do this with software that simulates traffic delays in the 30-block zone, along with ways to avoid traffic jams. “Given the decisions that emergency response teams make when sending vehicles to an incident,” Chow said, “we want to help them make predictions about whether a particular route they take or a particular strategy in sending different types of units might to help. or hinder their activities.”

The researchers rely on artificial intelligence to imitate the behavior of drivers, including their responses to sirens and flashing lights of a fire truck or ambulance. Chow said this was important because “surprisingly little information” had been collected about how ordinary drivers respond to those signals.

The software “doesn't just simulate traffic conditions,” he said Jinqin Gao, the deputy director of research at C2SMARTER. “It mimics the response of other vehicles to emergency vehicles and how emergency vehicles behave in the real world.”

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The latest Metro news

This time, Donald Trump spent less than five minutes on the witness stand.

His lawyer called him as a witness in the defamation lawsuit brought by writer E. Jean Carroll, a civil case stemming from her accusation that Trump raped her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s.

It was the second time in two weeks that Trump appeared in court to defend himself: on January 11, he spoke out as his months-long civil fraud trial drew to a close, describing himself as “an innocent man” and insulting the judge . .

On Thursday, his lawyer, Alina Habba, asked Trump if he stood by what he said during a deposition in which he called Carroll a liar.

“One hundred percent, yes,” Trump said. “She said something; I consider it a false accusation.”

Trump's brief appearance came after much pre-trial discussion about whether the judge, Lewis Kaplan, should take steps to ensure Trump didn't stray from the only issue in the case: damages. Carroll's lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, had written to the judge saying Trump could see a political advantage “by deliberately turning this trial into a circus.”

In the end, both sides seemed to achieve their goals. Trump answered a handful of questions from Habba, and he didn't rant about Carroll, who is demanding at least $10 million from the former president.

The Carroll case will be tried before a jury in federal court, unlike the civil fraud case, which will be decided solely by Judge Arthur Engoron in the state Supreme Court. The identities of the jurors have been kept secret by order of Judge Kaplan, who even suggested that they not share their real names. He said in a preliminary ruling that he wanted to guard against attempts to influence or harass them by Trump or his supporters.

The jurors have given no real clues as to how they view the case that unfolded before them. The only issue they will decide is how much Trump should pay Carroll for comments he made in June 2019, after Carroll: in a book excerpt published in New York magazine, first accused him of assault. Trump called her claim “completely untrue” and said he had never met her and that she was just trying to sell her book.

METROPOLITAN diary

Sudden stops

Dear Diary:

I was walking behind a woman walking her dog in Manhattan.

The dog suddenly stopped and I almost bumped into them both.

I started apologizing. The woman turned to me and smiled.

“No brake lights,” she said.

We both laughed.

About half an hour later I was standing at the register at Trader Joe's. I started walking forward and then stopped. The woman behind me gently nudged me with her shopping cart.

She started to apologize. I turned around and smiled.

“No brake lights,” I said.

– Carey Horwitz

Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send your entries here And read more Metropolitan Diary here.