Open public-good infrastructure for India
Every ambulance in India. One open directory.
Government 108, private operators, hospital-owned fleets, charitable services — published openly, verified by phone, free for any non-commercial use. No ads. No commission. No paid placement.
Or jump in: find a provider · explore data · register your ambulance · how this works.
Why this exists
In an Indian emergency you'll usually hear about one ambulance — the one your hospital ER routes to, the one Google ads at the top, the one a relative happens to know. There are typically fifty alternatives nearby. They go unheard because no neutral party publishes the directory.
The market can't build it. Aggregators (RED.Health, Medulance, Dial4242) won't list competitors. 108 won't surface private alternatives. JustDial monetises ads, not accuracy. Hospitals route to who pays them.
The state can't build it alone. NHM Karnataka publishes nothing about station locations, fleet capacity, or response times. ABDM has no EMS layer on the roadmap until at least 2027.
So we're building it as open civic infrastructure. The data is open. The methodology is published. The decisions are in ADRs. The moderation queue is public. Anyone can fork, mirror, audit, or extend.
How the data flows in — three-pillar federation
Adapted from OAQ's open-air-quality model. They aggregate from CPCB (government), Airnet/CSTEP (research), and Aurassure (private sensors), plus a "host a monitor" crowdsource layer. We adopt the same three-pillar structure for ambulances. Most pillars are aspirational today — we say so explicitly.
Government tier
Like CPCB: state 108 / Arogya Kavacha / EMRI. 12 state-level records seeded.
First RTI drafted, not yet filed. Once filed, station-level fleet + response times feed in. Goal: formal data-sharing MoU with at least one state health department by v2.
Research tier
Like Airnet / CSTEP: medical schools, public-health institutions, academic researchers. 0 partnerships today.
Candidates: IIPH, PHFI, NIMHANS public-health, AIIMS public-health departments, medical-school MPH programmes. Each could contribute systematic surveys, RTI dumps, dissertation research. Outreach has not started.
Private tier
Like Aurassure's University Clean Air Network: ambulance operators who opt in to publishing station lists + affiliations in exchange for the verified badge. Opt-in flow live, no opt-ins yet.
Self-claim at /claim. Embed widget at /for-providers. The reputational unlock is documented but not yet adopted by any aggregator.
Crowdsource layer
Like OAQ's "Host a Monitor": humans as sensors + geographic volunteers.
- Host a clinic feed — an ER attendant logs every ambulance arrival via a 30-second mobile form.
- Become a city captain — verify ~10 records/week in your city. The structural way we scale beyond one maintainer.
Why be honest about the gaps? Because they are exactly what makes this project a civic infrastructure ask, not a finished service. If you recognise yourself in any pillar — government agency, research institution, ambulance operator, ER attendant, civic volunteer — email us.
For people in distress
Open the directory, geolocate, see the five nearest providers, tap to call. Works offline once visited. Save numbers for next time. No login, no PII collected.
Find an ambulance →For ambulance providers
Free listing under the public-good licence. Earn a verified badge. Claim your record, submit corrections. No payments, no preferential placement — just neutral visibility.
List your service →For contributors
The whole project lives on GitHub — code, data, ADRs, moderation queue, governance, grants tracker. Pick a path: verify a provider, fix a record, translate, fork for your city.
Open source hub →What makes this open
License is the floor, not the ceiling. The engine of open source is process. Here's what's in the open:
The data
Every record as YAML in Git + JSON via API. Source-cited per field. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
The schemas
JSON Schema 2020-12. Validated in CI on every PR. Machine-readable.
The methodology
Verification phone-call script. 30-day cycle. Every contributor follows the same protocol.
The decisions
4 ADRs document why CC BY-NC-SA, why pseudonymous, why no GPS, why pan-India.
The moderation queue
Live from GitHub Issues API. See exactly what's pending, oldest first, with SLA flags.
The funding
Public grants tracker. Section 8 entity registration tracked. Donations not yet accepted — and we say why.
The federation
Mirror manifest + fork-your-city template. The project shouldn't depend on one domain.
The conduct
Contributor Covenant adapted for civic-data work. Reporters protected. Decisions logged.
What we are not
- Not an ambulance service. We own no vehicles, dispatch no calls.
- Not a real-time tracker. We don't claim to know which vehicle is closest right now.
- Not an ads or lead-gen business. No provider pays us, ever.
- Not a substitute for 108. In any medical emergency, dial 108 first.
Read the full disclaimer for the legal framing. Read how this site works for the user-friendly version.
Help build it
The directory is built one phone call at a time. The fastest way to help is to pick a provider you've actually called, and tell us what happened.