Novel methods to enhance cross-border emergency response
European emergencies span borders. While new emergency management systems (EMSs) may improve communications and coordination, they do not address cultural, linguistic and legal differences given in international context. Such factors may hinder emergency response, but special coordination systems using common data formats could eliminate some of the dangers. Such was the goal of the EU-funded DISASTER (Data interoperability solution at stakeholders emergencies reaction) project. Project partners developed a training/simulation programme to improve the communication and emergency handling skills and competencies of first responders. The DISASTER system consists of two key components: a common and modular mapping ontology called EMERGEL that considers various cultural, semantic and linguistic issues, and a transparent service-oriented architecture providing mediation algorithms that conform to existing data formats and solutions. A namespace was registered, and the EMERGEL ontology was published according to World Wide Web Consortium best practices and made publicly available. It contains all the common knowledge and concepts related to emergencies and stakeholders involved in a crisis situation. Two field trials involving a fire across the German-Dutch border and a plane crash successfully tested the solutions. Following user and stakeholder feedback, the field exercises highlighted an effective interface of legacy EMSs between neighbouring countries, each of which updates the other side in culturally appropriate ways. The communication allows more coordinated crisis response. DISASTER demonstrated the importance of data interoperability between EMSs and how new ways of information delivery and sharing can impact existing operational procedures. Reducing cultural, legal and linguistic differences will ultimately improve communication between first responders during major crises.
Keywords
Cross-border emergency information, emergency management systems, emergency response, data interoperability, first responders
