How the Red Cross is using AI to increase emergency preparedness

The mission of the American Red Cross of Chicago & Northern Illinois is to prevent and alleviate human suffering in the face of emergencies by mobilizing the power of volunteers and the generosity of donors. Serving over 9.5 million people across 21 counties in Northern Illinois, the American Red Cross of Chicago & Northern Illinois responds to 1,400 disasters a year, or around 4 disasters a day.

In order to keep track of their vehicles and continue to achieve their desired response time of under 90 minutes, Red Cross has partnered with Uptake.org to implement telematics devices across their fleet. With Uptake’s Asset IO application, Red Cross of Chicago & Northern Illinois can make use of real-time data to better understand the conditions of their vehicles and implement more strategic maintenance strategies.

Hear more from Jim McGowan, Director of Information Management & Situational Awareness, on how Uptake enables Red Cross volunteers to respond to more disasters:

Uptake’s Asset IO application helps fleets of any size drive value from the data they already have. It leverages vehicle diagnostics and driver-behavior data to easily predict and prevent impending failures, helping you improve productivity and reduce unplanned downtime. Fleets can use Asset IO to:

• Improve fuel consumption and spend by closely monitoring wasteful activities like idling time and vehicle speed.
• Leverage contextual data — like weather and traffic — to better understand your drivers’ decisions around speeding, unexpected acceleration or hard braking.
• Quickly see all important vehicle information — like work order history and recent faults — all in one place.
• Monitor vehicle performance without physical inspections and spot patterns or issues in a vehicle’s performance over time.
• Get immediate notifications about abnormal vehicle behavior — like high speed and sharp cornering.

Uptake.org is the philanthropic and civic innovation arm of Uptake. Through Uptake’s people, technology and expertise, we aim to help organizations use data to change the world.

International organizations and global nonprofits, like the American Red Cross of Chicago & Northern Illinois, utilize heavy assets and machinery to deliver critical services to communities in need. Uptake.org’s industrial approach to delivering aid through IoT sensor technology and APM applications is making world-class AI accessible to the social sector.

If you are interested in bringing Asset IO for Fleet to your organization, you can reach us at [email protected]