paper viveca jiménez - supporting mass evacuation guidance within public transport environments...
DESCRIPTION
TRANSCRIPT
Supporting Mass Evacuation Guidance within Public
Transport Environments during a Disaster Event Viveca Jiménez-Mixco
#1, Héctor Marfull Verdoy
#1, María F. Cabrera-Umpiérrez
#1, Arturo Díaz de Barrionuevo
#1
Evangelos Bekiaris#2, Phyl Blythe#3
#1Technical University of Madrid
C/Ciudad Universitaria s/n, 28040 Madrid, Spain
{vjimenez,hmarfull,chiqui}@lst.tfo.upm.es
Centre for Research and Technology Hellas
6th Km Charilaou-Thermi Road, 57001 (PO Box 361)
Thermi-Thessaloniki, Greece
University of Newcastle upon Tynes
Cassie Building, NE1 7RU, United Kingdom
Abstract— One of the most challenging issues when a disaster
event happens is to apply an accurate pre-defined response plan.
Rescuers need to react immediately and coordinate properly to
assure that all the individuals in the area are informed, receive
appropriate assistance and get evacuated from the zone within a
short period of time. For this purpose, communications have
been proven to be essential at every moment. The work
presented in this paper describes the Telecommunication
Infrastructure proposed in the context of SAVE ME project,
which aims at providing a fault tolerant communication, from
sensor detection to emergency centre in the event of an
emergency scenario to save the lives of the affected people, giving
particular emphasis to the most vulnerable ones.
I. INTRODUCTION
Disasters occur frequently around the world, like the recent
earthquake in Turkey, and their incidence and intensity seem
to be increasing in recent years. Whether their origin comes
from a natural or man-made source, they usually affect wide
areas, lead to widespread loss of life directly and indirectly
affect large segments of the population and cause significant
environmental damage and large-scale economic and social
harm [1]. In most cases people get trapped and have to wait up
to several days for the medical team to rescue them. As
disasters tend to become more recurrent, it is becoming a must
to prepare well for them and especially in relation to the most
vulnerable citizens protection.
This fact has a direct influence on transport operations and
means. More precisely: One major difficulty that is imposed
in planning the logistics of private and public transport is the
effect of a catastrophic earthquake. Although the fact is that
planning ahead of an earthquake is not always feasible, public
transport mainly dedicates extensive analyses in the
possibility of a large earthquake damaging its infrastructure.
The main weak point in public transport can be identified in
“closed” areas, such as the metro complex or long tunnels in
highways [2]. On the other hand, fires with the most serious
consequences have mostly been the result of tunnel accidents.
A fire in a tunnel can be lethal. The heat builds up very
quickly. That is why fire detection and ventilation systems and
emergency exits must be provided, the emergency services
must be alerted immediately, and tunnel operators must be
able to put emergency plans into operation seamlessly. When
a fire breaks out in a tunnel, vehicle occupants are changed
from spectators of an accident into participants in a potential
disaster, since they can be easily exposed to toxic flame and
smoke and trapped in areas where rescue teams have very
restricted access [3].
In addition, a great menace of our time is terrorism.
Transportation means, hubs and stations are targets of terrorist
attacks, because of the easy access and escape for the
terrorists and the fact that congregations of strangers
guarantee anonymity, but also because crowds in contained
environments are vulnerable to conventional explosives and
unconventional weapons. Finally, attacks cause alarm and
great disruption. Past and recent attacks have caused the death
of many people.
According to the above data, natural disasters and terrorism
constitute a great and escalating menace to personal injuries in
closed areas as the transportation networks, means and hubs,
with emphasis to its people concentration nodes, such as
Public Transport terminals/stations and tunnels. This implies 1)
that rescuers need precise information on the situation,
seamless communication means between them and the
operations centre and proper guidance to the trapped travellers,
and 2) that all travellers, including children, elderly and
disabled need appropriate guidance to be able to escape from
the affected area [4][5].
Communication is critical during an emergency and needs
to be addressed thoroughly within the disaster-response plan
[6]. The communication challenges include reaching people in
different locations with different devices quickly and
simultaneously; providing the right message (in terms of
content, length, and format); monitoring delivery and response;
and ensuring that the process is initiated and suspended at the
right times [7].
This paper presents an approach proposed in the context of
the European funded project SAVE-ME [8], which aims to
develop a system that detects disaster events in public
transport terminals/ vehicles and critical infrastructures (i.e.
tunnels and bridges) and supports quick and optimal mass
evacuation guidance, to save the lives of the general public
and the rescuers, giving special emphasis to the most
vulnerable travellers. In particular, we will describe the
Telecommunication Infrastructure, which objective is to
provide a fault tolerant communication, from sensor detection
to emergency centre, in the event of an emergency scenario.
II. MATERIALS AND METHODS
The work started with a detailed analysis of the different
target groups (travellers including the most vulnerable ones
and all the responders to an emergency), the key
transportations environments (PT hubs, PT vehicles, tunnels,
etc.) and the most important disaster events (both for natural
and man-made disasters). From all that information, the most
critical disaster types, transportation environments and target
groups were selected. For them, stakeholders’ needs
(operators’, emergency units’, travellers’) were analysed
through interviews, focus group discussions and literature
surveys, with emphasis on the particular needs of the various
vulnerable travellers groups, (i.e. elderly, disabled, children).
Also, a thorough benchmarking was performed on relevant
technologies, algorithms and policies, to be taken into account.
On the other hand, the influence of stress, panic and other
emotions on human behaviour was researched (in relation to
all traveller groups, disaster types and considering the system
feedback).
The process of extraction of user needs and requirements
confirmed that one of the main issues during an emergency
situation is to re-establish or maintain the communications
among the rescue teams and emergency unit’s operators. The
needs of these stakeholders are as important as the needs of
travellers, and in order to address these needs,
communications are essential. Travellers need to receive as
much information as possible of the kind of situation, nearest
emergency exits, how to react, etc. in order to be able to
escape. The operators of the emergency coordination centre
need communications in order to assess the situation and
dispatch the necessary and adequate resources as quickly as
possible. Also, the rescue teams need communications, first,
to be informed (type of emergency, location, number of
people involved, status map for all involved actors), and
second, to coordinate the actions with the rest of emergency
responders to be able to evacuate travellers from the place and
solve the situation. Usually, from the rescuers point of view,
as a key issue in emergency situations, it is critical to provide
communications redundantly, so that there is no loss of
service at any moment.
The Telecommunication module presented in this paper
addresses these needs, and in order to better understand its
role and the interaction of the Telecommunication
Infrastructure (TI) with other SAVE ME elements, the reader
should first get an overview of the components of the whole
system, which are illustrated in Fig 1 and described below:
Fig. 1. SAVE ME system overview
A. Detection and Communication System
The detection and communication system consists of:
• A wireless sensor network (WSN) grid, including
localization (through MOTES, Wi-fi and Bluetooth) and
environmental detection (of fire, flood, temperature,
noise, etc) combined with hybrid localization
techniques, to allow detection of the emergency key
parameters and localize travellers in the emergency area
and their movements;
• A Telecommunication Infrastructure module that allows
transmission of these data to the operators centre, even
under adverse conditions. This module is the core
element of the work presented in this paper and will be
further explained in the Results section.
B. Intelligent Agents for Personalisation
Intelligent Agents are the software entities, which act in a
cooperative manner, in order to provide personalized services
to trapped travellers. These agents represent users and their
preferences, and provide safety recommendations or perform
reasoning and making decisions about which are the most
appropriate means of each aspect of users in an emergency
situation, based upon their specific profile.
The multi-agent architecture is composed of the following
agent types:
• User Profile Agents, which are responsible of
monitoring and handling detailed information about the
user preferences, the kind of the end-user device and the
attributes of user’s physical environment, conceived
through suitable sensing mechanisms.
• Sensor Agents, which are responsible of capturing the
values of the hardware sensor signals in an agent-
understandable format, in order to provide notifications
upon potential modification of the received sensor
values.
• Decision Support Agents, responsible of interacting
with the Decision Support System whenever a decision
mechanism needs to be activated, in order to perform
reasoning over an emergency situation.
• Emergency Notification Agents, which notify the user
in real-time about the occurrence of an emergency event.
• Service Agents, which are activated whenever a specific
type of information is requested by the client side.
C. Decision Support System and Simulation module
The Decision Support System is the core intelligence of the
system. It receives information from the Detection System and
the Simulation module and subsequently processes it to
provide personalized and group wise routing for the people
detected in the area. It will also support dynamic grouping
structure for crowd simulation modelling in emergency
situations. Therefore, the system will calculate the fastest and
safest route to the closest exit for every individual and guide
them on it; individuals will be targeted through their mobile
terminals while groups will receive information through
situated displays and voice messages. The system is based on
an Agent-based Modelling technique, able to simulate the
actions and interactions of autonomous individuals, with a
view to assessing their effects on the system as a whole. The
model agents take into account travellers attributes (such as
age, mobility restrictions, as well as psychological traits such
as panic, fear, confusion, etc.) that can change over time or
with circumstances and can be adjusted to provide multiple
realistic versions of the simulation. In addition, users will be
able to access the simulation remotely through a mobile
handheld device and thus gain insight into real-time data, as
well as historic trends and predictive near future events and
patterns.
D. Training and Guidance System
The objective of this module is to enable the correct
training of operators of the emergency response platform, but
also to assess its operation under simulated emergency
scenarios.
The Virtual Reality (VR) Training and Guidance System
simulates the operation of the infrastructure through an
interactive 3D environment that includes different aspects of
the system, including: opening of doors, vent and other
evacuation facilities, remote operation of emergency
equipment, handling the monitoring of individuals by remote
control of surveillance equipment, guidance of emergency
teams and travellers, voice guidance, etc.
The VR training system incorporates simulated multi-user
interaction and communication tasks. It will also feature
Artificial Intelligence crowd simulation techniques, in order to
provide a realistic crowd behaviour feedback that will enhance
its realistic appeal.
Finally, the VR training and guidance system will feature a
number of specific emergency scenarios that will allow to
realistically modelling in 3D the locations of emergency
situations with all the pertinent environmental parameters of
these specific locations.
E. Emergency support interfaces
Appropriate human interaction in emergency conditions
and critical visual, chemical and noise environment is
essential to assure the provision of valuable escape
instructions to travellers at need and thus enable a fast and
safe evacuation. Consequently, the system includes novel
graphical, acoustical and haptic user interfaces.
Human interaction depends on the target person
characteristics, such as age, language, mental or physical
impairments, that can influence the understanding of the
information. Thus, the emergency support strategies depend
on parameters such as type of emergency, type of environment,
topology of the location, situation criticality, type of device,
etc.
Based on the previous parameters, the interaction mode can
consist of:
• Depending on the infrastructure level: variable message
sign information, programmable LED panels, simple
sound elements, etc.
• Depending on personal device: simple or complex
visual sign, simple or complex audio, tactile.
III. RESULTS
A. Goals and Output
The main goal of the SAVE ME telecommunication
module is to maintain the communications within a specific
transport infrastructure, from sensor detection to the control
centre, and rescuers’ and travellers’ mobile devices, in the
event of an emergency scenario. The module transmits data
even under adverse conditions, thus enabling continuous
operation, reliable and safe.
The network infrastructure has been designed following the
three fundamental characteristic of fault-tolerance [9] [10]:
• Replication: Providing multiple identical instances of
the same system or subsystem, directing tasks or
requests to all of them in parallel, and choosing the
correct result on the basis of a quorum;
• Redundancy: Providing multiple identical instances of
the same system and switching to one of the remaining
instances in case of a failure;
• Diversity: Providing multiple different implementations
of the same specification, and using them like replicated
systems to cope with errors in a specific implementation.
Fault tolerance is needed in many systems because the
consequences of a malfunction have a higher cost than the
cost of preventing the malfunction. For example, systems that
are either protecting life or are producing revenue only when
operating are generally intolerant of loss of service
malfunctions [9]. This is the case of SAVE ME TI. The
system will work under emergency circumstances and its
performance is critical in order to be able to properly manage
the situation and enable a quick and safe evacuation of
travellers and rescue personnel. However, the characteristic of
fault tolerance is not an absolute: no system can be truly made
tolerant to any possible combination of faults. Thus, there will
be always some combination of events and failures that may
lead to the disruption of the system, and the question becomes
one of degree, how much tolerance to faults is required. The
architecture of SAVE ME TI follows these principles in the
sense that even though the potential of the hazard event is too
strong and some components of the networks collapse, the
system will be automatically reconfigured so that the
communication service is not lost. If the emergency situation
is more powerful than the requirements and some nodes
collapse, the architecture will automatically reconfigure the
network routing by using the active nodes.
B. Module description
The model proposed is based on low cost ad-hoc Wi-Fi
routers able to manage Bluetooth with pre-installed and
automatic upgradable emergency software. These routers have
to become active when an emergency is detected and have to
be installed in transport infrastructures as black boxes.
Fig. 2. Telecommunication Infrastructure
Therefore, if the communication network in SAVE ME is
configured in Ad-hoc mode, if a router breaks and becomes
isolated during an emergency, the network will be
automatically reconfigured and the connection with a mobile
device will be redirected (Fig.3), so the network should be
able to provide the evacuation plan to the travellers located in
its range zone. If the infrastructure has critical points of failure
that block the internet connectivity, an embedded program,
installed in the active routers, will provide information about
the static evacuation plan by using web based interface over
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity to the mobile devices of
users entrapped in the transportation hub.
Fig. 3. Wi-Fi and BT connection with mobile phones
To set up an ad-hoc wireless network, each wireless adapter
must be configured for ad-hoc mode versus the alternative
infrastructure mode, and all wireless adapters must use the
same SSID and the same channel number. An ad-hoc network
tends to feature a small group of devices all in very close
proximity to each other. Ad hoc networks work well as a
temporary fallback mechanism if normally-available
infrastructure mode gear (access points or routers) stop
functioning [11]. To benefit from the advantages of ad-hoc
networks and minimize their drawbacks, the B.A.T.M.A.N
[12] routing protocol has been used.
Table I indicates the hardware components needed for each
of the routers.
TABLE I
HARDWARE ELEMENTS
No ROUTER HARDWARE COMPONENTS
Element Description
1 PC A PC, equipped and configured
specifically for the SAVE ME TI
2 Wireless PCI Card
(IEEE 802. 11 b/g/n)
One is configured as access
point, for the communication
between the router and the user’s
mobile device. The other is
configured in ad-hoc mode, for
the communication among
routers.
1 Bluetooth Card To support BT communication
between router and mobile
device.
C. Interaction with other SAVE ME components
The sub-systems of the SAVE ME prototype are mainly
linked together by an overall TCP/IP based network topology,
which continuous operation is guaranteed even in case of
disasters by its telecommunication infrastructure. This module
(TI) resides as an outer shield of the overall SAVE ME
communication system and provides a fault tolerant
communication mechanism. More specifically, the interaction
among the TI and other SAVE Me components consists is the
following:
• Decision support system: the Decision support system
activates the “emergency mode” of the
Telecommunication Infrastructure when there is an
emergency event. The information handled during the
emergency is sent through the TI, from sensor detection
to travellers, rescuers and operator support system.
• Telecommunication Infrastructure: Each router provides
Bluetooth and Wi-Fi communication. Ad-hoc mode is
used for communication between router and router, and
the access point mode is used for communication
between router and mobile device.
• Traveller/rescuer personal device: the user must
download and install an application on his mobile
device and register to it. There are two main scenarios
available for the provision of guidance through mobile
devices [13]: a) Full connectivity to the TI, when the
network does not crash after the disaster event, and the
user has access to the routers which provide up-to-date
information via internet connection; b) Limited
connectivity to the TI, when the network crashes and
the user has only access to an isolated router, so there is
not any updated information available.
• Control Centre computer: The detailed information
about the disaster is sent to the Control Centre through
the TI. One of the Control Centre application
functionalities is to let the operator check the status of
the TI for maintenance purposes.
IV. EVALUATION
Preliminary tests have been carried out in a laboratory
environment with promising results. Currently the TI
hardware components are being revised with the objective of
improving the coverage of the network and avoid any possible
interference problems that may be more severe within a real
transport environment.
The full evaluation framework entails the installation and
testing of the whole SAVE ME system in two Pilot sites: the
underground station and metro vehicles in Newcastle in the
UK and the Gotthard tunnel in Switzerland.
The Gotthard road tunnel in Switzerland, with 17 Km long,
is one of the major European road connections through the
Alps, and connects the Italian border (Chiasso) with Germany
and France (Basel). The Metro Rapid Transit System,
operated by NEXUS on behalf of the Tyne and Wear
Passenger Transport Authority, passes through the
Metropolitan Boroughs of Gateshead, North Tyneside, South
Tyneside and the Cities of Newcastle upon Tyne and
Sunderland.
The tests will involve all the systems and services of the
platform working under different context of use, as well as
different types of users (around 100 professionals and
individuals), including vulnerable travellers, such as elderly,
children disabled and tourists (no language understanding). In
particular, the pilot plans focus on key areas of innovation:
accurate user localisation in tunnels, terminals and hubs using
combinations of different sensor technologies along with
existing wireless and mobile technologies, dynamic
monitoring of position and movement of people and vehicles,
personalised as well as route guidance via mobile technology,
generic route guidance for those without mobile technology
and the DSS for guiding emergency support.
V. CONCLUSIONS
During a disaster event, a fast response is needed from all
the individuals and rescue teams that may be involved in order
to allow a quick and secure evacuation of the area and thus
avoid personal damages. This is especially critical when the
event occurs within a closed area, such as a public transport
facility, where travellers can be easily trapped and/or injured
and may need quick medical assistance.
The SAVE ME project is developing an integrated
approach to protect all travellers from physical disasters and
terrorist attack related risks, with emphasis to the most
vulnerable ones (such as elderly, children, disabled). It will
support mass guidance evacuation of public transport vehicles,
stations and other critical infrastructures. The approach
considers local group guidance advices; it is based on local
sensing and decision and is integrated with central DSS-based
evacuation planning. Its Wireless Sensor Network with
sensing, communication, computing and interaction elements
and DSS, constitute the basis for its fully integrated and
pervasive group guidance solutions. Also, preventive
information will be considered, in order to provide complete
group evacuation support.
This paper has presented the core of the Detection and
communication system, the Telecommunication Infrastructure.
It has been designed following the principles of a fault-
tolerant system (replication, redundancy and diversity); it is
based on an ad-hoc wireless network with high power
autonomy and high power transmission able to restore the
required communications in case of disaster events. It
provides consistent replication of the emergency information
and is able to communicate and inform directly the user.
After being fully integrated with the other modules and
sub-systems of the SAVE ME infrastructure, the
Telecommunication module will be tested in the two Pilot
sites of the project. Redundancy will be addressed in order to
provide full availability (~99.99%), and efficient spatially
located in order to cover the failure of any router. The tests
performed in the pilot sites will assess reliability, usability,
user acceptance, economic and safety/security impacts of the
whole system.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The heading of the Acknowledgment section and the
References section must not be numbered. This work has been
partially funded by the European Union in the context of the
SAVE ME project (SST-2008- 234027), coordinated by the
University of Newcastle Upon Tyne. The project started in 1st
October 2009, and has a duration of 36 months. The
consortium is composed of the following partners: UNEW,
CERTH, SIMUDYNE, CNVVF, IES, COAT, GST, MIZAR,
USTUTT, UNIMORE and UPM.
REFERENCES
[1] Handbook for Estimating the Socio-economic and Environmental Effects of Disasters. United Nations, Economic Commission for Latin
America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and International Bank for
Reconstruction and Development (The World Bank), 2003.
[2] FHWA- Federal Highway Administration, US Department of
Transportation. Technical Manual for Design and Construction of Road
Tunnels- Civil Elements, 2009. www.fhwa.dot.gov.
[3] European Tunnel Assessment Program (EUROTAP). Making Europe’s road tunnels safe for users. Inspections 2007. The Merset Queensway
Tunnel, AA Public Affairs, The Voice of UK Motorists, April 2007.
[4] Robert L. Heath; Jaesub Lee; Lan Ni. Crisis and Risk Approaches to Emergency Management Planning and Communication: The Role of
Similarity and Sensitivity. Journal of Public Relations Research, 1532-
754X, Volume 21, Issue 2, April 2009.
[5] Cabrera, MF; Arredondo, MT; Rodriguez, A, et al. Mobile
technologies in the management of disasters: the results of a
telemedicine solution. Annual Symposium of the American-Medical-
Informatics-Association (AMIA 2001), Nov 2001 WASHINGTON
D.C.Source: JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL
INFORMATICS ASSOCIATION Pages: 86-89 Published: 2001.
[6] Willen J. Muhren and Bartel Van de Walle. Sensemaking and
Information Management in Humanitarian Disaster Response:
Observations from the TRIPLEX Exercise. Proceedings of the 6th International ISCRAM Conference – Gothenburg, Sweden, May 2009.
[7] Fischer, Carl and Gellersen, Hans (2010). Location and Navigation
Support for Emergency Responders: A Survey. IEEE Pervasive Computing, 9 (1). pp. 38-47. ISSN 1536-1268.
[8] SAVE ME project Website http://www.save-me.eu/
[9] P White, R.V.; Miles, F.M.;. Principles of Fault Tolerance. Applied
Power Electronics Conference and Exposition, 1996. APEC '96.
Conference Proceedings 1996. Print ISBN: 0-7803-3044-7. San Jose,
CA, USA.
[10] Gérard Morel, Jean-François Pétin and Timothy L. Johnson. Reliability,
Maintainability, and Safety. Springer Handbook of Automation 2009,
Part E, 735-747, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-78831-7_42.
[11] Imrich Chlamtac, Marco Conti, Jennifer J.-N. Liu. Mobile ad hoc networking: imperatives and challenges.. Ad Hoc Networks 1 (2003)
13–64. Ed. Eselvier.
[12] B.A.T.M.A.N protocol Specification. Available on the web: http://www.open-mesh.org/wiki/open-mesh/BATMANConcept
[13] V. Jimenez Mixco et al., Development of Mobile Evacuation Guides
for Travellers and Rescue Personnel. C.Stephanidis (Ed.): Universal
Access in HCI, Part IV, HCII 2011, LNCS 6768, pp.235-243, 2011.
Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011.
[14] Coates et Al. Adaptive Co-ordinated Emergency Response to Rapidly
Evolving Large-Scale Unprecedented Events (REScUE). Proceedings
of the 8th International ISCRAM Conference – Lisbon, Portugal, May
2011.
[15] Russell Kondaveti and Aura Ganz; Decision support system for
resource allocation in disaster management. 31st Annual International
Conference of the IEEE EMBS Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, September 2-6, 2009
[16] W.K. and Candy M.Y. Ng. Waiting time in emergency evacuation of
crowded public transport terminals. Safety Science, Volume 46, Issue 5, June 2008, Pages 844-857.
[17] Maurizio Marchese et al. An interaction-centric approach to support
peer coordination in distributed emergency response management.
Intelligent Decision Technologies Journal, Volume 3, Number 1, 2009