A holistic, scenario-independent, situation-awareness and guidance system for sustaining the Active Evacuation Route for large crowds
The dynamic capture of situational awareness concerning crowds in specific mass gathering venues and its intelligent enablement into emergency management information systems, using smart communication devices and spaces is critical for achieving rapid, timely guidance and safe evacuation of people out of dangerous areas. Humans could be overwhelmed by fast changes of potentially dangerous incidents occurring at confined environments with mass-gathering. They could fail to make objective decisions to find their way to safety. This condition may lead to mass panic and make emergency management more challenging. In eVACUATE, the intelligent fusion of sensors, geospatial and contextual information, with advanced multi-scale crowd behaviour detection and recognition will be developed. The structured fusion of sensing information with dynamic estimated uncertainties on behaviour predictions will advance eVACUATE crowd dynamic models; and virtual reality simulations of crowds in confined environments. A service oriented Decision-Support System shall be developed to dynamically distribute on-demand evacuation information to emergency management actors as the crisis unfolds. Decision-makers at the command posts, first responders, front-line stewards and volunteers receive real-time situation aware information of updated evacuation strategies using robust and resilient eVACUATE information and communication infrastructure. Smart spaces of electronic, audio and other mobile devices shall be connected to the integrated system to provide safer evacuation routings for people. The eVACUATE system performance and scalability will be validated in four distinct scenarios involving incidents with large crowd at various venues with the requirements of evacuation time reductions and increases of safety and security.These are: 1) Underground stations in Bilbao and 2) Real Sociedad Football Stadium in San Sebastian, 3) Athens International Airport and 4) a STX Cruiseship.
The I-SENSE Team will undertake the leadership of Resilient Communications and Adaptive Interfaces including the communication platform as well as the interfacing between the data collection and control elements and the fusion & mediation systems. Further to this I-SENSE, will significantly contribute to smart spaces and situation awareness aspects and also Serious Games and Prediction components. Other contributions of I-SENSE will include the computer vision tools and the crowd detection via cameras, Decision Making and Optimal “Situation-aware” evacuation strategy.