Design and development of a smartphone-based application to save lives during accidents and emergencies

A road accident is an unpredictable event that could occur to an individual at any given time. Despite several measures taken to reduce fatalities, accidents continue to claim a large number of lives. The crucial step in saving a victim's life is to provide prompt medical support. In this paper, a smartphone-based application is developed that can observe, record, and take necessary actions for an immediate emergency response to the victims. This application can detect the occurrence of an accident based on the accelerometer data of the victim's smartphone. After the accident is confirmed, the app sends SOS alerts to the emergency medical services, ambulance services, registered contacts, and nearby acquaintances. Synchronisation with ride-hailing services and weather services, warning for dangerous on-road conditions, and natural disasters are further proposed for integration with the app. (C) 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.