Eagle One: Geoinformation passes emergency drill
On 5 March, a very special emergency drill was held in Gelderland. The idea behind this drill was to assess whether the use of geoinformation in crisis situations leads to a better understanding and decision-making. For the first time, geographical information had a prominent role in this regional drill with the emergency services ‘playing’ four different emergency scenarios. The police, the fire brigade, medical services and municipalities had an immediate and direct access to each other’s information. It is essential to have all this information for understanding the situation and for the emergency workers to take the most appropriate decisions.
Net-centric work approach
The fast and efficient sharing of information between the different emergency services is of crucial importance. Evaluations of emergency situations show time and again that the sharing of information during emergencies is an important bottleneck. The central objective of the net-centric work approach consists in making sure that appropriate information in an appropriate form is made available for the appropriate users. The development of a common operational picture must lead to enhanced decision-making processes and faster and more adequate actions.
A modern Command & Control System
The Middle Gelderland Assistance Centre (HGM) asked Geodan to modernise its existing Command & Control System, adjusting it to the net-centric work approach. Besides, the system must be able to share information to be delivered through GDI R&C web services. These services comply with open standards defined at the national level.
In ‘Eagle One’, the national geo files of the GDI R&C were linked to the applications normally used in the region for ‘command & control’ and crisis management. Sharing the situational panorama and the access to national geo files were both tested, with successful results.
Sitbeeld and Sitekst
The currently existing application consists of two components: Sitbeeld and Sitekst. Sitbeeld is based on ESRI ARCGIS combined with Microsoft Groove. Microsoft Groove uses peer-to-peer technology to interchange geographical and administrative data and messages, which could be in the form of text, images and sound. The principal advantage is that there is no dependency on communication with one central server. This gives solidity to the system.
The Regional Coordination Centre (RCC) of the Middle Gelderland Assistance Centre (HGM) uses this application in emergency drills and actual crisis situations (GRIP 2 and higher).
More information
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