TIMING - TECHNOLOGIES FOR TIMELY DECISION MAKING

First Responders (FRs) have one of the deadliest jobs in the world, since they operate very close to unpredicted dangers, such as sudden gas explosions, release of deadly chemicals, building collapse and heart attacks. In fact, FR fatalities compose more than half of the total fatalities of the incident in some cases. Situational Awareness (SA) has a significant impact on the incident management and coordination, where it is critical for all knowledge that is accessible and can be integrated into a coherent picture, when required, to assess and cope with a situation. Today, the integration of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and mobile technologies in emergency management is reshaping communications and information exchange between the command and control centres (C2C) and FRs on the incident site. Also, ICT has provided several opportunities for advanced-sensing, computing and communicating through smartphones, wearable-portable devices, robotics and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). However, reports show that advances in technology have not yet resulted in protecting FRs from injuries, health impacts and odourless toxic gases effectively. The International Forum to Advance First Responder Innovation’s (IFAFRI) has published a list of four FRs capability gaps (CG), namely the ability to: a) Know the location of responders and their proximity to risks and hazards in real time (CG1). b) Detect, monitor and analyse passive and active threats and hazards at incident scenes in real time (CG2). c) Rapidly identify hazardous agents and contaminants (CG3). d) Incorporate information from multiple and nontraditional sources (e.g. crowdsourcing and social media) into incident command (CG4). The TIMING project is devoted to realizing a set of modular interoperable technological systems to address the CG2 and CG3 and CG4 mentioned above.