GeoPulse Command Dashboard
Response Times Interpolated Map (Heat Map)
Network Analysis - Travel Times from Fire Stations

GeoPulse

Inspiration

Emergency response agencies have to make critical decisions about where to position ambulances before the next emergency occurs. Many of these decisions are based on coverage zones, historical experience, or known events, but emergency demand is constantly changing throughout the day.

As we started exploring EMS data, we saw an opportunity to use GIS to help agencies make more informed deployment decisions. Instead of simply reacting to emergencies, we wanted to identify patterns, forecast potential demand, and help position resources ahead of time.

That's what led us to create GeoPulse.

What It Does

GeoPulse is a decision-support application that helps EMS agencies proactively deploy resources using forecasting, spatial analysis, and optimization.

GeoPulse:

Identifies historical incident hotspots
Forecasts areas with increased likelihood of future incidents
Recommends ambulance staging locations
Evaluates response coverage and travel times
Explains why recommendations are being made

The goal is simple: help agencies position resources more strategically and improve emergency response.

How We Built It

We built GeoPulse using ArcGIS and a variety of public datasets, including NFIRS emergency response data, weather information, smoke forecasts, road networks, hospital locations, and EMS resource locations.

Using ArcGIS Pro, we performed Hot Spot Analysis, Kernel Density Analysis, and Space-Time Cube analysis to identify patterns in emergency demand.

We then used Network Analyst to evaluate travel times, service coverage, and potential staging locations. These analyses allowed us to identify areas with elevated demand and determine locations that could improve response coverage.

Finally, we brought everything together in ArcGIS Experience Builder, creating an application where users can explore incident patterns, view recommendations, and better understand where resources should be deployed.

Challenges We Faced

We ran into a number of technical challenges while building GeoPulse.

Some of the biggest challenges involved troubleshooting analysis workflows, validating our results, gaining access to the ArcGIS products we needed, and hosting the application through IIS.

We also spent time working through connectivity and API-related issues while developing some of the intelligent recommendation functionality. Bringing together spatial analysis, forecasting, network analysis, and a web application into a single workflow was not always straightforward.

Like any hackathon project, we had a lot of ideas and not a lot of time, so one of our biggest challenges was prioritizing the features that would provide the most value while ensuring everything worked together before the final presentation.

What We Learned

This project gave us experience working with several ArcGIS products and showed us how powerful GIS can be when it comes to decision-making.

We learned how spatial analysis, forecasting, and network analysis can work together to support real-world operations. We also gained a better understanding of how to take analytical outputs and turn them into information that can support operational decisions.

Most importantly, we learned that the value isn't just in creating maps—it's in helping people make better decisions using the information those maps provide.

What's Next?

GeoPulse currently focuses on EMS deployment, but there are many opportunities for future growth.

Potential next steps include:

CAD integration
Real-time resource optimization
Live traffic and environmental conditions
Fire response applications
Multi-agency coordination
Additional forecasting capabilities
Expanded operational decision support tools

We believe the same framework could be expanded to support a broader emergency response ecosystem and help agencies make even more informed deployment decisions.

GeoPulse

Predict. Position. Respond.

Built With

arcgispro
arcpy
experiencebuilder
python
react
typescript

Submitted to

Esri's Weekend of Innovation 2026

Created by

My contributions focused on backend data processing, integrating the hosted feature layers, and developing the spatial analysis functionality used to identify and summarize historical incidents near the suggested staging areas.

Jonathan Erb
jerb
I helped shape the overall vision and presentation of GeoPulse. I contributed to researching the problem, developing the project story, creating presentation materials, designing the demo flow, and communicating the value of the application. I also contributed to branding, user experience decisions, project documentation, and the final submission.

Callie Dixon
I mainly worked on custom functionality for the Experience Builder app, including our primary dispatch suggestion feature. I also focused on ensuring each of my team members' work integrated well to form our final application.

Joe Mackle
I worked on design as well as supporting mapping and analysis. My contributions included preparing and analyzing datasets, conducting spatial analyses, creating visualizations and symbology, and designing the interface. I also helped transform analysis into actionable insights for future emergency response.

Mariella Jorge
I led the spatial analysis and data preparation. I categorized the incident data into incident-specific datasets, conducted hot spot, outlier, and network analyses, along with created response-time visualizations, including an interpolated EMS response-time surface map.

Jason Haley