INTELLIGENT MOBILE CRISIS RESPONSE SYSTEMS

Systems to help coordinate responder communication and response efforts in order to minimize the threat to human life and damage to property.
major tasks (see Figure 1); though listed in linear order, people whose job is to respond might be geographi- they are not necessarily sequential and may be considcally dispersed. Flexible and robust mobile communi- ered parallel or iterative. Together, they represent the cation is paramount for helping ensure that the crisis key functional areas of a CRS (see Table 1). Creating is handled in the most efficient and effective manner integrated systems built over mobile networks that possible. perform each of the six major tasks is Along with communication, the key to facilitating an intelligent criMonitoring and Reporting another essential component of a sis response. This involves the use of response is the ability to coordinate state-of-the-art IT distributed over a actions among emergency team network of mobile devices that remains Identification members, including rescuers, disactive and alert, monitors the environpatchers, and resource coordinators, ment, and communicates and collaboespecially in risky, uncertain, timerates with users and with other systems. Notification sensitive environments. The need for In terms of monitoring and reportcoordination is heightened when a ing, signs of a crisis must be detected at crisis spans multiple jurisdictions [2] the outset. Pervasive sensing technology Organization or requires a regional response [1]. can help by forming an elaborate sensor This combination of communicanetwork to continuously monitor criOperation tion and coordination is the key to sis-prone areas from multiple perspecan effective response. tives. Messages to human observers Mobile communication networks could then be forwarded over mobile Assessment and Investigation must be deployed within an intecommunication devices. Conversations grated human-system interaction with emergency callers could be strucenvironment that can handle the tured to facilitate the capture and retencollaborative aspects of responding to a crisis. Doing Figure 1. Major tion of important crisis information. tasks of an Utilizing predefined rules and reasoning so would provide a crisis response system (CRS) with intelligent the requisite intelligence to support crisis response mobile CRS. mechanisms, information received from workers in an emergency. a variety of sources could be verified Any CRS must support a collaborative knowledgequickly, used to generate standard based environment that facilitates timely and relevant reports using templates, and forwarded to the approinformation exchange leading to the successful resolu- priate emergency centers. tion of the crisis [4]. A CRS must generally support six Information gathered from a variety of sources can

A CRISIS can occur anywhere at any time, and the

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Notification help estimate the extent of a Identification 4) Based on the classification of the disaster 3) Software automatically searches the disaster and provide a basis for as involving hazardous material, the rail company's database looking for the jurisdictional Hazardous Materials train's cargo information. Knowing what initial action. A CRS could Coordinator is contacted. Local residents identified and contacted over mobile are notified about evacuation through radio, communications. quickly collect background TV and automatic dialing. Cell phone calls facilitate expeditious notification. information from multiple Monitoring and Reporting sources and identify the crisis 1) Sensors on the train quickly experts who must be contacted. detect the fire and notify the train's engineer Organization Information-gathering agents 5) Qualified personnel such as fire 2) Local police and fire fighters, medical personnel, police could reduce workloads and departments are identified and force, hazard handling engineers, notified over mobile and volunteers are contacted over time delays. Database systems communication devices mobile communications and assigned corresponding roles. could maintain profiles of crisis experts and crisis characterisAssessment and Investigation 7) Information about the disaster from tics, using automatic indexing multiple sources is gathered over and information retrieval algomobile channels. The information is Operation classified with appropriate keywords, 6) Information is forwarded over mobile channels rithms to classify this informaand statistics are generated about the from a central command center to the right parties damage, life loss, injury, and casefacilitating knowledge sharing and coordination. This tion and match experts with based and probability-based reasoning information includes guidelines on evacuation and helps assess the disaster. hazardous materials. crisis scenarios. Appropriate responders must be identified, selected, and contacted. Such notification crisis, each teams or each indi- Figure 2. Intelligent should be based on the nature and magnitude of the viduals role may change. Thus mobile CRS scenario for a hazardous-material crisis and guided by predefined regulations and emer- the situation must be moni- rail incident. gency plans. If they are stored electronically, the system tored, and groups and individushould be able to identify the people needed to handle als must be redeployed and law enforcement and fire and rescue operations. Fur- reorganized as necessary over dynamically adaptive thermore, by using multiple directory databases, networks. To help with this activity, decision-making requests could be sent over mobile communication agents could quickly examine multifaceted data and devices to all parties who must be aware of the situation. A number Tasks Description Key Issues of wireless carriers provide emer- Monitoring and Constantly monitor crisis-prone areas Collecting complete and accurate data and quickly report to emergency centers Enabling fast transmission of information gency email notification of nat- Reporting Authenticating sources of information ural disasters and other Identification Quickly identify the nature Connecting to experts and knowledge-based systems and scope of the crisis and Diagnosing crisis scenarios collect background information emergencies through cell phones Devising explicit rules of crew dispatching Rapidly select and contact the Notification and pagers. Multiple directory appropriate response team personnel databases could provide redun- Organization Swiftly establish response teams with Identifying personnel availability Defining roles appropriate roles and responsibilities dant communication channels to Announcing and enforcing the assignment of roles reach emergency responders. Collecting and disseminating up-to-date, Operation Efficiently support the coordination of Teams of crisis workers, relevant information tasks among response team workers including firefighters, police, and Assessment and Judiciously assess the damage and Collecting quality information medical emergency professionals, Investigation investigate the major causes of the crisis Analyzing the collected evidence must be formed quickly, assigned Table 1. Major tasks roles and responsibilities, and deployed to disaster recommend courses of action. sites. Assignments are based on their qualifications and The effort of a variety of emer- of a CRS. previous experience. Volunteer activity might also gency response teams must be need to be coordinated, possibly through the preregis- coordinated. Advanced IT could play a key role in tration of volunteers in local emergency response data- facilitating information sharing among team members bases; when a disaster occurs, these volunteers are during a rescue operation. The technology would have contacted right away. The organization of response primary responsibility for maintaining up-to-date criteams may not be fixed throughout the crisis but sis information and for providing crews with sumrather evolves as the availability of qualified personnel maries enabling them to see the overall picture, as well fluctuates. as specific, detailed information on its various aspects. State-of-the-art technology could help formulate Virtual reality and geographical information systems response teams by matching the skills of crisis workers could be used to model disaster sites and recreate the with the tasks required to contain and eliminate the disaster in order to assess the type and severity of the crisis. Due to the uncertainty and dynamic nature of a damage. Thus, during a disaster, experts and emer-

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gency responders in both local and remote locations The scenario involves a train transporting hazardous could update the crisis information, and the system materials that stopped near the citys downtown with would record and display all changes to current users. smoke coming from one of its cars. When entering High-speed global networks and grids could facilitate Casa Grande, the train engineer did not know he had such operations on a global scale. a fire on board and thus failed to report it to the local The causes of a crisis and the resulting damage might police, fire department, and rail company. also be evaluated. DataAlthough police and Tasks Key Roles bases could be used to firefighters arrived shortly monitoring maintain a historical Monitoring and Provide automaticconversations for emergency call handling afterward, no information Offer structured Reporting Facilitate quick filing of reports via templates record, documenting was immediately available automatic searching everything about a crisis as Identification Supportexperts to contact for background information about the hazardous Identify Support crisis classification with reasoning capability it happens in real time over material that was burning Identify parties for notification Notification mobile networks. Preinside the car or on the Tailor messages to parties Facilitate information dispatching defined templates could extent the cargo was a help record the most perti- Organization Define required teams and tasks threat to human health. Match individuals and groups to corresponding roles nent and useful informaThe rail company was not Update and notify team assignments dynamically tion. Data mining Operation contacted until 20 min Facilitate information exchange between teams and individuals Optimize the use of communication channels techniques could help utes into the incident, and Facilitate knowledge sharing Provide onsite consulting identify key events and pateven then, incomplete Offer resource allocation and logistic support terns in the crisis data, and Assessment and Facilitate information gathering cargo information was Classify and cleanse information Investigation case-based reasoning obtained. Support case-based reasoning and data mining for investigations mechanisms could help Uncertainty remained Generate assessment reports match the crisis under as to how to contain and investigation with other similar cases and events. Prelim- Table 2. Roles in an intelligent suppress the fire and inary reports could be produced to help human experts mobile CRS. whether an evacuation in their assessment and investigation of the crisis. was warranted. Local Table 2 lists the key roles involved in each of the six police and firefighters lacked training in dealing with tasks; Table 3 lists example CRS technologies and Web hazardous material crises. As a result, the response sites. Though they can facilitate an effective crisis emphasized suppressing the firea traditional crisis response, the CRS must help crisis workers respond response for the local crewsrather than on evacuating and react creatively to the specific the immediate area. It was requirements of each individual Some Examples and Related Sites not until 40 minutes into situation. The system should let EmergencyCall (www.criticall.co.uk). Uses complex technology the crisis that the emergency contact automatically without distracting human experts go about their models to and timepeoplefrom the incident at hand. crews realized the smoke was resources away jobs in a manner that best reflects Remedys Crisis Response System (www.remedy.com). dangerousonly after sevAutomates activities that enable the context and needs of the spe- crisis event from initial discoveryan organization to manage a eral police officers had through closurewith the alerts, notifications, and actions required to achieve business cific situation at hand, rather than continuity. become incapacitated and dictating a particular approach or had to be hospitalized. Tapestrys Integrated CRS (www.visionlink.org). Offers different solution. Technical challenges operational modes designed for various levels of crisis and Meanwhile, crowds of include compatibility among response. Each mode integrates various information and referral, citizens converged on the multi-agent case management, community building (volunteer, donor existing technologies; software etc.) scheduling, and message and communication systems. scene, hampering the moveMulti-agent Noncombatant Evacuation Operation (http://www-2.cs. portability and access; how to cmu.edu/~softagents/tie3.html). Illustrates the interaction of multiment of emergency vehicles execute supply sufficient bandwidth to agent teams in aiding humans to plan andescalating cooperatively a and personnel. Though the hypothetical evacuation of civilians in an terrorism crisis. support video and graphic dis- Multi-Sector Crisis Management Consortium (www.mscmc.org). fire department advised the Investigates technologies and future CRS directions. plays; how to integrate data from police to evacuate the area multiple sources; and how to hanwithin five minutes of learndle multiple information types. Table 3. Example CRS ing of the incident, 20 minutes elapsed before additechnologies and tional help was requested for traffic and crowd control. related Web sites. Incident Scenario Discussions of how to fight the fire and the extent of The following scenario reflects the evacuation area were still taking place 30 minutes the problems that occurred during a real hazardous after the incident began. material incident in Casa Grande, AZ, in 1983 [3]. Only limited information was available on the toxBased on this example, we illustrate how an intelligent icity of the smoke, and response crews did not know mobile CRS might have helped resolve some of them. whether to order an evacuation when residents were
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confronted with the smoke or to employ more conservative measures. Ultimately, local residents were not notified to evacuate until the nearby area was inundated with smoke. Due to the shortage of equipment and lack of an identifiable command post, there were failures in communication among emergency workers. No direct communication channel existed between the police and fire departments, and knowledge of who was doing what was generally absent. This resulted in duplication of effort by response crews and a severe shortage of workers for certain tasks. Even though there were six hazardous-material-handling teams in Arizona at the time, the states hazardous materials coordinator did not arrive on the scene until the crisis was fairly well controlled. When the fire (but not the smoke) had been suppressed, the fire commander issued a statement that the situation was under controlwithout performing a careful risk assessment. The police wrongly perceived the smoke hazard as an insignificant threat to health. No information was provided about the amount of damage done by the fire, nor were Casa Grande citizens given information about the long-term health effects of inhaling the smoke. An intelligent mobile CRS would have facilitated a more effective response. Figure 2 outlines a proposed

solution, supporting the six critical tasks cited earlier and leveraging the use of advanced IT in an integrated mobile network of computers and human crisis workers. Such action is necessary to facilitate an intelligent crisis response. We encourage further research and development in this area. c References
1. Campbell, D. 9/11: A healthcare providers response. Front. Health Serv. Manage. 19, 1 (2002), 313. 2. Daley, E. Wireless interoperability. Public Manage. 85, 4 (2003), 610. 3. Pijawka, D., Radwan, A., and Soesilo, J. Emergency response to a hazardous-materials rail incident in Casa Grande, Arizona. In Crisis Management: A Casebook, M. Charles and J. Kim, Eds. Charles C. Thomas Publishers, Springfield, IL, 1988, 4363. 4. Turoff, M. Past and future emergency response information systems. Commun. ACM 45, 4 (Apr. 2002), 2932.

Yufei Yuan (yuanyuf@mcmaster.ca) is Wayne C. Fox Chair in

Business Innovation and a professor of information systems in the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., Canada. Brian Detlor (detlorb@mcmaster.ca) is an assistant professor of information systems in the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., Canada.
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