When an emergency occurs, people in charge like fire brigade, policeman, the military, medical personnel, etc. need better coordination between their departments
In order to manage a crisis situation it is a necessary prerequisite that all security and safety systems keep working and adapt to the new situation by scaling their workflow to manage or control
Features like self-diagnosis enable systems to be more adaptive to unexpected changes
In order to evaluate an emergency situation immediately, it is necessary to keep the involved bodies updated with information in real-time
Real-time quality information is needed to adapt to changing conditions as soon as possible and control the new situation. Sensor networks can be used to satisfy this need.
Social networks like Twitter are often used to update people about current developments of emergencies. However information is provided almost real-time since it comes from involved persons, it is not an ideal solution for coordinating helpers.
The development of new applications and platforms to coordinate citizens who want to participate in the resolution of emergencies could satisfy this need.
Interoperability is a prerequisite for system collaboration and interaction
Real-time information must be available for all involved parties solving a crisis such as fire brigade, police, health, military, etc.
Under the trend of a drastic increase in deployed sensors, the capability of performing analytical tasks right at the sensor level play an important role in dealing with the enormous amounts of acquired data. Providing sensors with strong analytical capabilities at low power consumption is a challenge for the future.
Improvements of algorithms allow the use of automated systems with a lower rate of errors in decision-making, in pattern recognition and in the analysis of data from network sensors.
Modelling and simulation play an important role in forecasting upcoming disasters, but also in monitoring and managing current emergency and crisis situations.
In order to effectively use large amounts of data in the response to emergency and crisis situations, capabilities will have to be developed to deal with big data in real-time and to enable human beings to make big-data-based decisions.
A crisis management support system (CMSS) can be designed to access large online databases to cope with information overhead and analyse data reliability. To learn lessons from past crisis, consulting distributed knowledge pools and using case-based reasoning are options. Making use of group decision support systems (DSS)can alleviate problems related to group pathologies, improve decision quality or enhance an organisation's readiness to deal with catastrophe.
Increased communication speed is vital to ensuring an undelayed response to an emergency situation.
Sensor networks should be evaluable in terms of their quality, response time, amount of data provided, etc.
The standardisation of procedures and the development of protocols will communicationgreatly ease collaboration for emergency and crisis response.
Robust communication systems are characterised by the ability to maintain their essential performance conditions and never lose communication despite receiving shocks or being attacked.
Systems with the capabilities of self-management and autonomous decision making will play an important role in supporting human beings in an emergency response situation.
Social networking facilitates emergency information to citizens and can help e.g. with the evacuation of an affected area or by providing information of alternative routes to avoid an area, sparing the danger to humans.
One database for all emergency bodies from different regions or countries on a European level would help to gain better knowledge of different types of emergencies and provide more information that might not even seem important to be shared.
An improvement in processing data, pattern recognition algorithms and tools for structuring and storing data will improve and streamline decision making.
Modeling and simulation play an important role in forecasting upcoming disasters, but also in monitoring and managing current emergency and crisis situations.
Improvements of algorithms allow the use of automated systems with a lower rate of errors in decision-making, in pattern recognition and in the analysis of data from network sensors.
Sensor technology is a huge research field constantly improving size, capacity, interoperability and other metrics of sensors. The increasing quality and lower price of sensors leads to a drastic increase in deployed sensors.
In the domain of emergency and crisis management, the involvement of civil society in the response action has great potential. In order to do so, employed SoS must be intuitive to use and thereby enable the participation of the regular citizen in the response action, with minimal or no training.
Training tools for bodies of emergencies, staff in charge of coordination, staff that manages information, telephone operators, maintenance personnel, etc. will support efficient joint action in the case of an emergency.
A workflow could be a one-time-only process or ad hoc workflow, a collaborative process that coordinates a team working together to achieve a goal, or a mission-critical, transaction-oriented production workflow.
The trend of a drastic increase in deployed sensors leads to the digital availability of enormous amounts of acquired data about the physical world. To make use of this, tools with powerful analytical capabilities to turn this real-time data into real-time information are required.
In order to effectively use large amounts of data in the response to emergency and crisis situations, capabilities will have to be developed to deal with big data in real-time and to enable human beings to make big-data-based decisions.
The architecture of a SoS must allow coordination and liaison between actors and efficient allocation of assets in resolving a crisis.
Interactive sensor networks arefulfill fundamental roles in cases such as climatic management, fire management, management of robberies and intrusions, presence control and control of lighting. are climatic management, fire management, management of robberies and intrusions, presence control and control of lighting.
A security policy describes the process of how, when and with whom information can be shared. It also specifies under which conditions, what actions can be taken when discovering threats or vulnerabilities.
Real-time capabilities of systems are crucial at all stages of an emergency situation for an effective, targeted response. It enables the continuous and undelayed adjustment of the response plan to current developments.