Learn about the operations research to the development of EU-wide systems for crisis management
Learn about the operations research to the development of EU-wide systems for crisis management
Listen to Karen Neville, an information systems professor at University College Cork, discussing (2014) applying operations research to the development of EU-wide systems for crisis management.
University College Cork, Ireland (A Britannica Publishing Partner)
Transcript
The research grant is funded by the European Commission, and they awarded us $3.5 million to build a decision support tool set for first responders in an emergency. And decision makers are first responders, like fire brigades, paramedics. And also the chief emergency manager, who would outline the type of response and coordinate all the different agencies.
So we will, in effect, be building a tool that will help them prepare. There's an awful lot of preparation in responding to a disaster, so training and getting people from different agencies to work together, and also as well, the actual response. So making sure the resources are there, the right resources are allocated, and that responders are tracked in how they actually work together during an emergency.
And also after the emergency, to analyze how they performed, how they worked together. Did they have enough resources? What kind of modeling can we provide in terms of an emergency? So what-if analysis.
If there's an explosion to help the emergency response team to map out the plume of the explosion, the area that's affected. And also how resources have been allocated. And maybe in terms of, if a population had to be moved as a result of an explosion or a flood, the impact on the resources like hospitals in the area that they have been evacuated to.
And then as well, the analysis would help people to see how they formed individually, as well as by group. So comparing how you respond from one disaster to the other. So the lesson's learned and that you can improve.
And then as well, on top of that, the recovery. So as we know, there is a huge economic, as well as other factors, like loss of life. Also, people who might lose income. People from mental illness might be affected, vulnerable groups, and how we can help them recover.
Also, risk communication would be taken on board. Social media, in terms of any kind of emergency now, is helping our responders in terms of giving them information about the operational picture of what's happened at the instant on ground. And using that to get the right information out to the public, as well as using it to help build our picture.
And also as well, it's a cross-border project, so we are involving a number of different end users in the Republic. The HSE are involved, and also the public health authority in Northern Ireland. And we'll have a joint exercise to test the system. It will be a chemical explosion, and the two countries working together.
And also in Israel, we have the MDA, which is their Red Cross. And we have Irish SMEs, like the Future Analytics Consultancy. They're based in Dublin. They'll been looking at building that operational picture using spatial database, so mapping out how a flood occurs in Cork. Vector command in the UK, which will be involved in command and control tools.
In Switzerland, we have a company called Excel, in terms of project management and helping us publish on the results of our project. In UCC, the IS is coordinating the project so Business Information Systems, and we're building DSS tools. And we also have the training centers [INAUDIBLE] in UCC for the medical response training. In Sweden, we have Lund, who are involved with knowledge management and helping us with a large knowledge base. [? Te Gratz ?] in the University of Vienna in Austria are looking at the psychology aspects of how people react in a disaster.
And also in terms of interoperability, which is a huge issue in the European Commission and in Europe, different countries have different skill sets. So the EU particularly liked the fact that we are trying to figure out, or we will figure out, how that interoperability can occur. Paramedics in Ireland and the UK and Israel and Germany have different skill sets. So when you're allocating resources, you want to make sure as a decision maker that you know what resources you're allocating. Even the connections for pumps for fire brigades are different, so if you're working together, how do we do that?
And also about the lessons learned. If we have a flooding incident in Cork, that we will be able to translate that into an exercise for emergency responders in Cork, but also translate it so it can be used in Austria. So the EU Commission have awarded us based on the fact that we're not only building on decisions for a toolset, we're looking at training methodologies about how first responders can respond. We're looking at how to filter out the right information, as well as building up the operational picture. And that interoperability between countries that we can work effectively together in a cross-border response to a large scale disaster. In our actual project, those scenarios, or those disasters that we're looking at, would be a chemical explosion between Northern Ireland and the Republic, a large scale flood in the UK, and in Israel we're looking at a biological hazard involving a plane.
As a result of the project and other security projects that I've been involved in, the head of my department, Professor Karen Murphy, has agreed to create a center that I will be managing called the Center for Security Management Research. We will actually be based in [? South Mall, ?] which is also part of the UCC campus.
So we will, in effect, be building a tool that will help them prepare. There's an awful lot of preparation in responding to a disaster, so training and getting people from different agencies to work together, and also as well, the actual response. So making sure the resources are there, the right resources are allocated, and that responders are tracked in how they actually work together during an emergency.
And also after the emergency, to analyze how they performed, how they worked together. Did they have enough resources? What kind of modeling can we provide in terms of an emergency? So what-if analysis.
If there's an explosion to help the emergency response team to map out the plume of the explosion, the area that's affected. And also how resources have been allocated. And maybe in terms of, if a population had to be moved as a result of an explosion or a flood, the impact on the resources like hospitals in the area that they have been evacuated to.
And then as well, the analysis would help people to see how they formed individually, as well as by group. So comparing how you respond from one disaster to the other. So the lesson's learned and that you can improve.
And then as well, on top of that, the recovery. So as we know, there is a huge economic, as well as other factors, like loss of life. Also, people who might lose income. People from mental illness might be affected, vulnerable groups, and how we can help them recover.
Also, risk communication would be taken on board. Social media, in terms of any kind of emergency now, is helping our responders in terms of giving them information about the operational picture of what's happened at the instant on ground. And using that to get the right information out to the public, as well as using it to help build our picture.
And also as well, it's a cross-border project, so we are involving a number of different end users in the Republic. The HSE are involved, and also the public health authority in Northern Ireland. And we'll have a joint exercise to test the system. It will be a chemical explosion, and the two countries working together.
And also in Israel, we have the MDA, which is their Red Cross. And we have Irish SMEs, like the Future Analytics Consultancy. They're based in Dublin. They'll been looking at building that operational picture using spatial database, so mapping out how a flood occurs in Cork. Vector command in the UK, which will be involved in command and control tools.
In Switzerland, we have a company called Excel, in terms of project management and helping us publish on the results of our project. In UCC, the IS is coordinating the project so Business Information Systems, and we're building DSS tools. And we also have the training centers [INAUDIBLE] in UCC for the medical response training. In Sweden, we have Lund, who are involved with knowledge management and helping us with a large knowledge base. [? Te Gratz ?] in the University of Vienna in Austria are looking at the psychology aspects of how people react in a disaster.
And also in terms of interoperability, which is a huge issue in the European Commission and in Europe, different countries have different skill sets. So the EU particularly liked the fact that we are trying to figure out, or we will figure out, how that interoperability can occur. Paramedics in Ireland and the UK and Israel and Germany have different skill sets. So when you're allocating resources, you want to make sure as a decision maker that you know what resources you're allocating. Even the connections for pumps for fire brigades are different, so if you're working together, how do we do that?
And also about the lessons learned. If we have a flooding incident in Cork, that we will be able to translate that into an exercise for emergency responders in Cork, but also translate it so it can be used in Austria. So the EU Commission have awarded us based on the fact that we're not only building on decisions for a toolset, we're looking at training methodologies about how first responders can respond. We're looking at how to filter out the right information, as well as building up the operational picture. And that interoperability between countries that we can work effectively together in a cross-border response to a large scale disaster. In our actual project, those scenarios, or those disasters that we're looking at, would be a chemical explosion between Northern Ireland and the Republic, a large scale flood in the UK, and in Israel we're looking at a biological hazard involving a plane.
As a result of the project and other security projects that I've been involved in, the head of my department, Professor Karen Murphy, has agreed to create a center that I will be managing called the Center for Security Management Research. We will actually be based in [? South Mall, ?] which is also part of the UCC campus.