median ambulance dodges traffic by riding highway road dividers like monorails

at the peak of rush hour, it can be very difficult for emergency services to reach accidents on highways. traffic jams can stretch for miles with cars lined bumper to bumper with nowhere to go for hours. to solve this, some countries feature ‘hard shoulders’ that are special lanes designated for emergency services; others require drivers to pull to the edges of their respective lanes to create an emergency route in between; and, in the worst case scenario, responders can try and drive in the opposite direction of travel on the highway to reach the scene. however, the median ambulance conceptualizes a new solution. like a monorail, it uses the road divider to ride along the motorway to reach the accident.

all images courtesy of hong seonghwan, lee hyungtaek, lee taekkyung and song yoojin

the special ambulance, which does not get affected by traffic congestion, was created by south korean desginers hong seonghwan, lee hyungtaek, lee taekkyung and song yoojin. it sits upon the road divider – also called the median strip – and drives up to the accident. the design features sliding doors on both sides in order to offer assistance on either direction on the highway. it also includes seats for both the driver and an assistant, and an area for a stretcher to look after the patient.

project info:

name: median ambulance

designer: hong seonghwan, lee hyungtaek, lee taekkyung and song yoojin

tim spears I designboom

feb 26, 2019

Let us ‘just hope’ nobody in that heavy traffic has hit or is stopped next to the median. Helicopters.
Jim
Jimmy Xi says:
Feb 26, 2019
Reply
And where runs the other Ambulance called for the other accident 15 miles north or south ?
Any way, a well designed idea.
Yoram says:
Mar 04, 2019
Reply

have something to add? share your thoughts in our comments section below.
all comments are reviewed for the purposes of moderation before publishing.

name (required)

e-mail (will not be published) (required)

text

comments policy

LOG IN

designboom's comment policy guidelines
generally speaking, if we publish something, it's because we're genuinely interested in the subject. we hope you'll share this interest and if you know even more about it, please share! our goal in the discussion threads is to have good conversation and we prefer constructive opinions. we and our readers have fun with entertaining ones. designboom welcomes alerts about typos, incorrect names, and the like.
the correction is at the discretion of the post editor and may not happen immediately.

what if you disagree with what we or another commenter has to say?
let's hear it! but please understand that offensive, inappropriate, or just plain annoying comments may be deleted or shortened.

- please do not make racist, sexist, anti-semitic, homophobic or otherwise offensive comments.
- please don't personally insult the writers or your fellow commenters.
- please avoid using offensive words, replacing a few letters with asterisks is not a valid workaround.
- please don't include your website or e-mail address in your comments for the purpose of self-promotion.
- please respect jury verdicts and do not discuss offensively on the competition results
(there is only one fist prize, and designboom usually asks renown professionals to help us to promote talent.
in addition to the awarded designs, we do feel that almost all deserve our attention, that is why we publish
the best 100-200 entries too.)

a link is allowed in comments as long as they add value in the form of information, images, humor, etc. (links to the front page of your personal blog or website are not okay). unwelcome links (to commercial products or services of others, offensive material etc. ) will be redacted. and, ... yes, spam gets banned. no, we do not post fake comments.

PRODUCT LIBRARY

a diverse digital database that acts as a valuable guide in gaining insight and information about a product directly from the manufacturer, and serves as a rich reference point in developing a project or scheme.