Congestion Pricing and EMS Travel Time: Evidence from NYC for Seattle

This research provides Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson and Seattle Department of Transportation Acting Director Angela Brady with an assessment of how congestion pricing affects emergency medical services in a city. The team used EMS dispatch data to create a control group via propensity score matching and then applied the Difference-in-Differences methodology to estimate the policy's impact in New York City. The study analyzes the time required for responders to reach incident locations, from dispatch to arrival. The initial results demonstrate that congestion pricing reduces EMS response times, potentially enhancing the effectiveness of emergency response in high-density urban environments. The analysis supports our recommendation that Seattle should test congestion pricing through a pilot program, which would enhance emergency medical services response times.