The Free State of Bavaria in southern Germany is one out of two German states which has a uniform design for vehicles in the emergency medical services.
To be precise a series of EMS vehicles are centrally purchased with a uniform design, with each unit of a certain type of EMS vehicle being based on the same chassis, having the same body system, lights and sirens setup and color scheme, with the only difference being the company logo of the EMS provider.
That totally makes sense, as for the caller and patient or drivers in traffic it doesn't matter if it's EMS provider A or B, it only matters that they notice the emergency vehicle at all and recognize it as EMS service.
These types of EMS vehicles have a uniform design in Bavaria:
- BLS Transport Ambulances
- ALS Emergency Ambulances
- Bariatric ALS Emergency Ambulances
- MICU Mobile Intensive Care Units
- Emergency Doctor Cars
An ALS Emergency Ambulance in the city will look exactly the same like in the countryside, and an Emergency Doctor Car in the far south-east of the state will look exactly the same like in the far north-west.
Only variation in chassis, design and appearance comes with different generations of a specific unit, with older units still being in service in one place while another place has brand-new ones.
That's the theory so far. And with that in mind Bavarian EMS seems pretty boring for emergency vehicle spotters. But in reality exceptions confirm the rule. And there are lots of exceptions:
- 4 out of 7 career fire department operate 1 or more EMS vehicles. Most of them aren't from the centralized purchase but are designed individually
- a to me unknown number of plant fire departments operate ALS Emergency Ambulances as well
- some plants have on-site medical services seperated from their plant FD. So it's kind of plant EMS with their own ambulances, just like those from plant FDs
- decentralized purchases from normal EMS providers when there's the demand for a specific feature
- test vehicles during their test phase. They usually stay in service after the test phase is over
- vehicles from volunteer divisions and quick response groups; Their units are primarily meant for stand-by services at large scale events and in case of larger incidents. Often former frontline units are used for this task, but their appearance is adapted
- private EMS providers which run BLS Transport Ambulances which aren't connected to and organized by the integrated Fire & EMS command centers
- command and chief units. Some of them are based on former emergency doctor cars, some others are purchased brand-new. But there's no uniform design on them at all
- First Responder units: both the volunteer divisions from EMS providers and volunteer fire departments often run first responder cars for quick intervention in medical emergencies, but they aren't an actual part of "normal" EMS
- special response vehicles like blood and organ transport cars, back-up emergency doctor cars, large capacity ambulance buses or stroke response car
- rental units from rental services providing emergency vehicles in case of an extraordinary demand at large scale events or to compensate the breakdown of a unit when the provider doesn't have another spare unit in its own fleet
- private owned cars, like private chief cars or private emergency doctor cars
- medical transport services getting tourists back home, not part of actual EMS either
Besides all those exceptions even the uniform design of actual EMS units can have minor variations, like an additional emergency phone number here or a different colored stripe there, but those are again exceptions.
The video shows all kinds of EMS vehicles from 27 different cities and counties, and from 6 additional plant FD and EMS providers