ESS session at IDRC 2012 - Davos

ESS project – technical and conceptual challenges

Chaim RAFALOWSKI¹, Gideon HAZZANI², Adrien MANGIAVILLANO³, Jose HERRERO⁴, Pablo RIVAS⁴, George EFTYCHIDIS⁵

¹Magen David Adom, Israel; ²VERINT, Israel; ³CEREN, France; ⁴GMV, Spain; ⁵ALGO systems, Greece

ESS – Emergency Support System, is an EU – FP7 funded project - FP7-SEC-2007-01: Network Enabled command and control systems: Integrated Project 217951.

ESS aims to provide a rapidly deployable and portable, platform which incorporate sensors and external web services from various sources into one operational system for supporting response to emergencies and crisis management allowing the creation of a real-time, common operational picture. The sensors and services include – chemical, weather, fixed ground cameras, airborne cameras, detection of the signals created by GPS, cellular, traffic information, hazards simulation and more. All this information is presented on a web based portal, which is accessible by the incident commanders at the command post, other stakeholders from anywhere, as well as by the field actors through PDA applications. Risk assessment modules, available in the ESS portal, support decision making during the crisis situation

The system performed a "proof of concept" test in Germany in June 2010 , and two full scale field exercises in France in cooperation with end users organizations of which one in Nimes in April 2012 addressing a flood related scenario associated with a virtual evacuation of a stadium and another test in Sisteron in June 2012 concerning a truck accident in a road tunnel causing a chemical spill in a nearby water course. A third test is planned for April of 2013 to test the system against a scenario of an airplane crash with a large forest fire start which shall cross the borders from France to Italy.

Objective of the idrc 2012 session is to provide the participants an insight into the system, as well as into the challenges encountered in the processes and the solutions the project came with.

Session program:

1. The Emergency Support System - ESS: Concept and technology (20’) - Gideon HAZZANI, VERINT (IL)

2. Emergency Support System - ESS : The end-user perspective (15’) – Chaim RAFALOWSKI, MDA (IL)

3. Emergency Support System - ESS: System’s field tests and lessons learned (30’) – Adrien MANGIAVILLANO, CEREN (FR)

4. Emergency Support System - ESS : Demonstration of the web-portal (30’) – Jose HERRERO, GMV (ES)

5. Discussion and conclusions - round table (25’) Moderated by George EFTYCHIDIS, ALGO (GR)

Acknowledgement

The ESS project is partially funded by the European Commission, Directorate General Enterprise, under the Grant agreement No.217951 of the SECURITY Programme (Theme 10) of the Seventh Framework Programme.

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