Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Abstract: This paper presents an information-technology-based collaboration framework that facilitates disaster response operations. The
collaboration framework incorporates a web collaboration service, radio frequency identification 共RFID兲 tags, a building blackbox system
共BBS兲, a geo-database, and a geographic information system 共GIS兲. Through the integration of these technologies, the framework provides
a collaboration medium for first responders, including civil engineers, to cohesively respond to disasters. Access to critical building
information, such as construction documents, through the BBS supports assessments of building integrity during disaster response.
Building assessment information is stored on RFID tags, which are accessible to first responders through digital devices via a wireless ad
hoc network. With on-site assessment information shown on a digital map, decision makers locate, collect, and distribute critical resources
through the GIS to first responders. In addition, the decision makers at distributed locations evaluate the incident through discussion
sessions, hosted by the web collaboration environment, for integrated decision making. Test-bed simulations for the framework have been
carried out with encouraging results at the training ground of the Illinois Fire Service Institute.
DOI: 10.1061/共ASCE兲CP.1943-5487.0000033
CE Database subject headings: Disasters; Emergency services; Damage; Assessment; Information systems; Information management;
Geographic information systems; Computer networks.
Author keywords: Disasters; Emergency services; Damage assessment; Information systems; Information management; Ad hoc
networks; Geographic information systems.
7
1
Dean of The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Sci- Visiting Assistant Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engi-
ence and Morris A. and Alma Schapiro Professor of Civil Engineering neering, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 205 N. Mathews Ave.,
and Engineering Mechanics, Earth and Environmental Engineering, and Urbana, IL 61801. E-mail: carboled@uiuc.edu
8
Computer Science, Columbia Univ., 510 S. W. Mudd Bldg., 500 W. 120th Student, Dept. of Computer Science, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-
St., New York, NY 10027. E-mail: feniosky@columbia.edu Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801. E-mail: tlantz@uiuc.edu
9
2
Ph.D. Student, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Graduate Student, Dept. of Project Engineering, Univ. Politècnica de
Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 205 N. Mathews Ave., Urbana, Catalunya–ETSEIAT, Barcelona 8034, Spain. E-mail: albert.plans@
IL 61801 共corresponding author兲. E-mail: aychen2@uiuc.edu upc.edu
10
3
Lecturer, School of Built Environment, Univ. of Salford, The Cres- Advanced Technology Associate, Citi Financial, Wall St., New York,
cent, Salford, Greater Manchester, UK M5 4WT. E-mail: z.aziz@ NY 10005. E-mail:sanyogita.lakhera@citi.com
11
salford.ac.uk Master Student, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
4
Associate Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 205 N. Mathews Ave., Urbana,
Carnegie Mellon Univ., 118 N. Porter Hall, Pittsburgh, PA 15213. E-mail: IL 61801. E-mail: smathur3@uiuc.edu
lucio@andrew.cmu.edu Note. This manuscript was submitted on May 16, 2008; approved on
5
Associate Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, July 2, 2009; published online on January 22, 2010. Discussion period
Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 205 N. Mathews Ave., Urbana, open until October 1, 2010; separate discussions must be submitted for
IL 61801. E-mail: lliu1@uiuc.edu individual papers. This paper is part of the Journal of Computing in
6
Associate Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Vol. 24, No. 3, May 1, 2010. ©ASCE, ISSN 0887-
Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 205 N. Mathews Ave., Urbana, 3801/2010/3-302–312/$25.00.
IL 61801. E-mail: elrayes@uiuc.edu
by shortcomings in the interoperability, functional damage, and these meetings, system requirements in the form of use-cases and
inefficient mechanisms of communication 共Meeds 2006兲. graphical user interfaces 共GUI兲 are established based on the ex-
During XEs, limited resources must be allocated to the first perience of these domain experts. The following requirements are
responders. However, logistics management is a major obstacle to identified and summarized for the collaboration framework:
response operations in recent XEs 共Halton 2006兲. There were 1. A unified communication medium to coordinate geographi-
challenges in collection, prioritization, and delivery of resources cally distributed response units and decision makers with ac-
during Hurricane Katrina 共Kevany 2005兲. School buses were cess from generic digital devices.
available for evacuation in New Orleans before the landfall, while 2. On-site access of real-time digital building information
no suitable bus drivers were standing by for deployment 共SBC through digital devices. Building information is preserved
2006兲. After the landfall, buses were soaked in the flood and electronically to be accessible to first responders.
thousands of people were trapped. During the 9/11 terrorist at- 3. On-site building assessment through digital devices. Elec-
tacks, the authorities were not fully aware of available resources, tronic assessment information is propagated to first respond-
which led to ineffective deployment 共National Commission ers and decision makers.
2004兲. EMAs discovered that resource management is extremely 4. Instant access of critical resource information. Available re-
important to disaster response: “Throughout the government, sources are shown on a map with attributes to facilitate ro-
nothing has been harder for officials than to set priorities, making bust resource assignment.
hard choices in allocating limited resources” 共National Commis- 5. Automated resource management decision making, which in-
sion 2004兲. cludes digital requests, real-time shortest path finding, and
resource prioritization and scheduling.
Requirements are documented for developers and stakeholders
Objective to work closely throughout the development and testing phases
共Kroll and Kruchten 2003兲. Artifacts, such as use-cases and se-
In the previous sections, the challenges discovered in recent XEs quence diagrams, are commonly used to document functional re-
are highlighted. This paper presents an IT-based collaboration quirements of IT systems. Through these artifacts, developers
framework that addresses these challenges. The framework inte- recognize the requirements and stakeholders understand the capa-
grates research areas in real-time communication and coordina- bilities of the developing software. Use-cases and sequence dia-
tion, digitized building assessment and its document retrieval, and grams are used during the inception phase of the CP2R system
automated resource management. development. Use-cases visualize the tasks that users can perform
through the IT system. For example, a use-case for building as-
sessment is shown in Fig. 1共a兲 with available tasks such as “create
Problem Statement new evaluation” and “get critical information.” On the other hand,
the sequence diagrams illustrate the procedures that the IT system
To achieve the objective, system requirements are discovered, executes for specific functionalities. A sequence diagram is shown
understood, and implemented for the IT-based collaboration in Fig. 1共b兲 for information retrieval such as request for building
framework. The requirements have been discovered based on information.
conversations and regular meetings held with domain experts in-
cluding decision makers 共Champaign County EMA兲, fire fighters
共Illinois Fire Service Institute兲, structural specialists 共U.S. Army Collaboration Framework
Construction Engineering Research Laboratory兲, and FEMA
US&R first responders 共Massachusetts Task Force I兲. These do- This section presents a collaboration framework composed of five
main experts have been deployed to disasters such as the 9/11 subsystems. Each subsystem has its own assignment to improve
terrorist attacks, Hurricane Katrina, and Hurricane Rita. Within current disaster response operations. As a whole, they form a
collaboration framework that supports cohesive collaboration and The system architecture and user interface of inMeeting are
coordination, robust on-site building assessment, and effective re- shown in Fig. 3. The system consists of three components: client,
source deployment. server, and third-party resources 共Peña-Mora and Dwivedi 2002兲.
Fig. 2 depicts an overview of the collaboration framework Limited computational power and hardware specifications are
共Chen et al. 2007兲. The framework is composed of a central col- required for the client application. Thus, a variety of lightweight
laboration medium layer, an on-site building assessment operation digital devices such as personal digital assistants 共PDAs兲 and
layer, and a resource management layer. The following sections cellphones are capable of running the client application. The in-
discuss the system components and their integration into a whole. Meeting server provides an efficient web conferencing environ-
ment, which serves different client devices through the generic
Collaboration Medium device access interface. Various meeting protocols, such as free-
inMeeting 共Peña-Mora and Dwivedi 2002兲 is the core component style, lecture, chalk passing, chairman, and side conversations,
of the integrated collaboration framework. The distributed client have been implemented. These meeting styles are control strate-
server architecture of inMeeting provides critical functionalities gies that are the same as those in actual meetings. The control
to augment communication and coordination among the first re- strategies provide meeting participants an environment for effec-
sponders and decision makers. inMeeting enables the first re- tive discussions to facilitate decision making. The third-party
sponders, distributed throughout the disaster zone, to coordinate software interacts with the inMeeting server through a generic
and share critical information through its generic device access software component interface. The server provides an image bit-
and conferencing, polling, and application sharing capabilities. map of third-party applications for client access. Third-party ap-
plications, such as AutoCAD 共2009兲 and ArcGIS 共2009兲, which of the BAS utilizes user datagram protocol 共UDP兲 and transmis-
usually require heavy computational power and specific hardware sion control protocol 共TCP兲 through standard 802.11 networks in
and software support, are accessible to client devices. Addition- the ad hoc mode. The BAS communicates with RFID tags
ally, the inMeeting server provides a generic interface to effort- through i-CARD III with the application programming interface
lessly add and remove third-party applications as independent 共API兲 developed by IDENTEC 共2008兲. Data persistence and ex-
modules. change within the BAS are encoded in extensible markup lan-
In summary, the decision makers and first responders can hold guage 共XML兲 format.
web meetings and access third-party software and critical infor- During disaster response, first responders are equipped with
mation with a variety of devices through inMeeting. The first RFID tags and 802.11 networking enabled mobile devices such as
responders can access off-site construction documents when as- PDAs or tablet PCs. Within the disaster zone, the first responders
sessing building integrity on-site. This greatly reduces the time set up a wireless ad hoc network with these mobile devices. The
overhead of accessing off-site information. As a result, disaster ad hoc network provides computer network communication with-
response operations can be expedited through the flexible com- out any infrastructure-based communication such as cellular net-
munication and simple software access provided by inMeeting. work and internet. When the first responders arrive at a particular
building, they place a RFID tag on the building. A GUI with
standard ATC building assessment forms is provided by the BAS.
On-Site Assessment Operations
The building assessment is performed and the result is stored on
Two system components are presented in this section: building the RFID tag. Afterward, a reduced format of the building assess-
assessment system 共BAS兲 and building blackbox system 共BBS兲. ment information is distributed throughout the network with a
The BAS provides on-site first responders an interface to assess color-coded marker shown on the map representing the location
damaged buildings through digital devices. BBS offers the first of the building. Markers are color coded with green, yellow, or
responders electronic access to critical building information. To- red according to the building conditions: safe, restricted, or dan-
gether, the BAS and BBS make on-site building assessment op- gerous, respectively 共Fig. 4兲. With the building assessment infor-
erations more efficient and robust. mation visible on digital devices, the situational awareness of the
first responders is enhanced. Detailed building evaluation infor-
mation can be retrieved, through the networking protocol, by
Building Assessment System clicking on the marker on the digital map. Fig. 4 shows the sys-
tem architecture of the BAS and its GUI with color-coded loca-
The BAS automates on-site building assessment operations dur- tions of the RFID tags. The square markers 共yellow and red兲 on
ing XEs. The BAS is based on the Applied Technology Council’s the map of the GUI represent two damaged buildings already
共ATC兲 procedures for postearthquake building safety assessment. assessed at the moment.
First responders assess the building integrity in a standard ATC The BAS solves several existing difficulties of building assess-
building evaluation form and store the results on radio frequency ment. No overlaps and differences in the building marking sys-
identification 共RFID兲 tags through the BAS 共Peña-Mora et al. tems used by different levels of government will preserve.
2008兲. Whenever a higher level of government joins the disaster re-
The BAS has a five-tier architecture 共Fig. 4兲, which provides sponse operations, the BAS is used to view and edit previous
flexibility for system extension and software swapping 共Aziz assessments. This reduces remarking and reworking. Instead of
et al. 2009兲. The BAS is developed in C# with the .NET Frame- using the orange spray paint on walls or columns, the on-site
work 2.0 and Compact Framework 2.0. The networking protocol building assessment information is stored electronically through
digital devices. Smoke and debris no longer affect the visibility proposed concept of the BBS, still under development, is to inte-
of on-site building assessment information. Furthermore, the grate neighboring BBSs, embedded structural sensors, and build-
building assessment information is disseminated to the incident ing control systems. In addition, a plug-in interface for structural
command post electronically via the wireless ad hoc network. analysis tools is envisioned to provide the first responders precise
Therefore, the time overhead is reduced without having officers to structural health conditions. Real-time structural analysis and
pass hardcopy documents back to the command post. building control systems such as building security, electricity, and
elevator systems will be accessible through the BBS. As a result,
the BBS offers the first responders with various functionalities for
Building Blackbox System on-site building information access and building system control.
The BBS provides the first responders with building information Resource Management
during disasters 共Tsai et al. 2007, 2008兲. Building blackboxes are
preinstalled in buildings with digital building design documents. In this section, two system components for resource management
Once an XE occurs, an ad hoc network is established between the are presented. The emergency resource repository portal 共E2RP兲
blackbox and digital devices for the first responders to access is a web-based geo-database service that gives access of resource
information. The integration of existing building sensing and con- information to on-site and off-site decision makers. The auto-
trol systems into the BBS is envisioned to provide abundant mated resource management system 共ARMS兲 alternatively pro-
building information to the first responders for successful US&R vides an automated route finding service for resource allocation to
operations. In addition, the BBS is designed to be disaster surviv- support disaster response operations.
able. High temperature resistant and high strength geo-polymer
materials are used for its physical protection to ensure informa-
tion availability after the impact of XEs. Emergency Resource Repository Portal
The BBS incorporates the mobile ad hoc space for colla-
boration 共MASC兲 as the basis of the communication network Resources such as construction equipment and professional
共Aldunate et al. 2006兲. The MASC is a distributed system that personnel are urgently needed in disaster response operations. Lo-
supports collaboration in first response operations. Collaboration gistical information serves an important role in decision making
capabilities of the MASC, such as ad hoc distributed shared for resource allocation. The E2RP is a web-based geo-database
memory and data replication, provide high availability and trans- 共Fig. 6兲 implemented with an open-source GIS Web service,
parency of information and resource during disaster response. MapServer 共2009兲, and a database, PostgreSQL/PostGIS 共2009兲,
In Fig. 5, the process of information request for the BBS is with geospatial extensions 共Chen et al. 2008兲.
shown from a user’s point of view. The first responders request Through a client-server architecture 共Fig. 6兲, the E2RP re-
building information through the GUI and the application sends quires low hardware specifications for clients; the server performs
the request to the building blackbox through HTTP protocol. The the heavy computational analysis. The clients simply view and
BBS queries its database and responds to the request. Finally, the query the content on the server through a web browser. The user
GUI shows the received document to the first responders. From interface of the E2RP 共Fig. 6兲 provides predefined dropdown lists
the system’s point of view, BBS serves as a central information and checkboxes for common data queries. Advanced users can
service containing on-site critical building information. An inter- query the database with complex structured query language
face is provided to integrate building information components and 共SQL兲. Different from relational databases, spatial queries are
establishes a wireless ad hoc network for communication. Data available with geo-databases. Decision makers not only acquire
redundancy mechanisms at backup database servers are estab- resource information more efficiently through the database, but
lished to ensure the availability of critical building information. A also perform geospatial analysis such as the distance, union, and
intersections of different spatial entities. For example, the deci- network. As a result, FBs and PBs enable the ARMS to present a
sion makers can query for available resources within a specific realistic road network for fastest route analysis.
radius from any location on the map. This narrows down candi- The execution of the network analyst requires complex and
date resources to expedite decision making. time-consuming preparation steps in the network analyst toolbox
The E2RP provides information such as National Incident of ArcGIS. To address this challenge, the ARMS automates
Management System 共NIMS兲 resource types 共NIMS 2007兲, spa- the preparation and analysis procedure of the network analyst
tial locations, and quantities of available resources. EMAs use through an add-on application. The application is implemented
NIMS as standard types, which categorize resource functionality with ArcObjects 共ESRI 2009兲 in Visual Basic for Applications
and capacity. Through the E2RP, first responders search for re- 共VBA兲. Users select the target location from the GUI to activate
sources that suit their needs based on the NIMS standard types. the network analyst and the fastest routes are automatically pro-
Future expansions of the E2RP include real-time update and syn- duced. Fig. 7 shows the GUI of the ARMS running an example
chronization of the database with inventory systems and location route simulation provided with the road network data from the
tracking systems for resource update and redeployment. In sum- Champaign County GIS Consortium, with the Illinois Fire Ser-
mary, the E2RP provides the decision makers and first responders vice Institute 共IFSI兲 as the destination for resource deployment.
with resource information and access to spatial analysis to expe- The ARMS improves the current process of resource deploy-
dite logistics management for disaster response operations. ment in disaster response operations. A route-finding analysis is
automated by the ARMS for resource distribution. On-site first
responders, including civil engineers, can request equipment from
Automated Resource Management System the ARMS through PDAs. The ARMS has a client-server archi-
tecture 共Fig. 7兲. Requests are sent to the ARMS through XML
During XEs, the first responders need to immediately reach the format and the ARMS performs the path-finding analysis. The
disaster zone with the required equipment for instant responses. resource request format follows the NIMS standardized resource
However, the efficiency of disaster response operations is ham- types 共NIMS 2007兲. Fig. 7 shows a TCP/IP network connection
pered due to the high probability of vehicle rerouting 共Kwan and that streams a resource request from a client application to the
Lee 2005兲. The ARMS is a GIS-based system that generates fast- ARMS service. Potential expansions of the ARMS include deci-
est routes to the disaster sites from multiple resource locations sion making for resource assignment, resource redeployment, and
共Chen et al. 2008兲. The ARMS utilizes the network analyst exten- automated traffic condition tracking.
sion of ArcGIS 共2009兲 as an engine to generate the fastest routes
using a two-way Dijkstra’s algorithm 共ESRI 2009兲.
Before any geospatial analysis can be carried out, geospatial Integration of inMeeting, BAS, BBS, ARMS,
data must be collected and processed. Rather than building a new and E2RP
road network from scratch, the ARMS updates existing road net-
work data with traffic conditions using full blockages 共FBs兲 and In the previous sections, the system components of the CP2R
partial blockages 共PBs兲. While FBs terminate the traffic flow of collaboration framework are presented. The integration of these
road sections, PBs, not part of the ArcGIS network analyst exten- subsystems into one collaboration framework provides users with
sion, diminish the traffic flow by a certain amount of value ac- a unified interface for communication and coordination, building
cording to the reported traffic condition. FBs and PBs are the assessment, and logistics management. A single ad hoc network
mechanisms for the ARMS to control the edge values of the road established in the disaster zone integrates the communication me-
dium of inMeeting, BAS, and BBS, while the E2RP and ARMS been implemented. The E2RP, on the other hand, provides de-
operate and show resource information to meeting participants tailed resource information. With the ARMS querying resource
through the software component interface of inMeeting. information from the E2RP through activeX data objects 共ADO兲
The integration of the BAS, BBS, and inMeeting with a single connections, the collection of the resource information and deter-
framework provides the first responders a unified system to oper- mination of the fastest path to allocate these resources is accom-
ate. The BAS, BBS, and inMeeting synchronize communication plished and automated. Meeting participants of inMeeting are
through a single ad hoc network. The BAS is currently under able to visualize and make decisions for resource allocation based
integration with the BBS and inMeeting through the bottom two on the resource queries and route analysis. As a result, the inte-
tiers of the BAS system architecture 共Fig. 4兲 as plug-ins 共Aziz gration of inMeeting, ARMS, and E2RP achieves the goal of
et al. 2009兲, providing a unified user interface in the BAS to implementing IT systems to support decision making for resource
retrieve information from the BBS and run meeting sessions on distribution in disaster response.
inMeeting. Cross-referenced information from these systems The integration of inMeeting, BAS, BBS, E2RP, and ARMS
strengthens the on-site situational awareness of the first respond- has great benefit to disaster collaboration and coordination. An
ers and supports assessment operations with critical building overview of the integrated collaboration framework is shown in
documents. Fig. 2. The E2RP and ARMS form the resource management
Challenges have been discovered for the system integrations. layer, while the BAS and BBS form the on-site assessment op-
Unpredictable network partitions and multipurpose entities on the
eration layer. With inMeeting hosting the web meeting environ-
ad hoc space make communication unstable. Currently, a periodic
ment in the collaboration medium layer, a unified communication
gossiping mechanism is used to inform neighboring devices of the
interface for overall coordination is established. When a web col-
existence of network connections. The network attempts to come
laboration forum is engaged by distributed first responders and
to a stable state by exchanging information between peers. While
decision makers, inMeeting offers an interface to share applica-
the connectivity of the network is not guaranteed at any given
point, information can be propagated from one partition to an- tions, such as the BAS, ARMS, and E2RP, to meeting partici-
other by as little as one connection. However, if several subgraphs pants. For example, the ARMS provides a visualization interface
of the network stay partitioned over a long period of time, the to present the geospatial condition of the disaster and resource
short range of 802.11 wireless signals limits the ability to spread availabilities through a GIS interface. The meeting participants
information to a geographically separated portion of the group will not only see the geographically distributed resource in the
effectively. The capacities of ad hoc networks greatly depend on ARMS but also building damaged information retrieved from the
the topology of the networks 共Li et al. 2001兲. Yet there is no BAS through their digital devices. The decision makers can hold
guarantee of the network topology in a dynamic and chaotic situ- discussions based on the situation and give professional assess-
ation such as XEs, while no communication protocol is useful in ments and suggestions through the meeting environment. The col-
the face of long standing network partitions. Additionally, stream- laboration framework expedites the process of critical decision
ing a large amount of packets across the ad hoc network congests making through the application sharing and varies meeting con-
the network and exhausts the battery life of digital devices trols. inMeeting provides to enhance communication and coordi-
quickly. nation among various meeting participants. With functionalities
The integration of inMeeting, ARMS, and E2RP facilitates de- provided by these subsystems, the CP2R collaboration framework
cision making for resource allocation. Although the ARMS pro- as a whole addresses the aforementioned challenges in communi-
vides the resource allocation route finding with road network cation and coordination, building assessment, and logistics man-
condition update, the collection of resource information has not agement in XEs.
Field Testing tified. The issues highlight the importance of satisfying the con-
straints introduced by technological complexity, cost, user
The framework is demonstrated to domain experts through regu- acceptability, and organizational and group dynamics. The dis-
lar meetings in the laboratory and adjustments are made accord- covered challenges are addressed as part of the continuing CP2R
ing to feedbacks from the experts. Field tests are performed once research initiative.
every six to eight months based on the progress of system devel- In summary, the field tests at the IFSI and the GAMES pro-
opment. Once the target requirements are implemented and sys- gram helped to better analyze the requirements for the collabora-
tem adjustments are completed and agreed with domain experts, a tion framework. Future tests are planned to iteratively improve
field testing is carried out at the IFSI. On June 16 and September the system in collaboration with different levels of public EMAs.
25, 2006, the CP2R collaboration framework was tested at the
IFSI training ground surrounded with simulated fire and smoke Conclusions and Future Work
with firefighters being trained alongside. Graduate students per-
In this paper, the CP2R collaboration framework is presented to
formed tests such as operation of the BAS with full firefighting
support disaster response operations. The framework is expected
gear and measurement of the transmission range of digital de-
to overcome challenges discovered in recent XEs. Expansions and
vices. Firefighter trainers along with a dozen firefighters gave
refinements to the subsystems and overall framework are still in
feedback on user interface layout and functional requirements. In
progress for future deployment to disasters.
August 2006 and August 2007, the writers hosted educational
The framework improves current disaster relief efforts in many
sessions at the IFSI for the annual Girls Adventures in Mathemat-
aspects. A unified communication interface for the overall re-
ics, Engineering, and Science 共GAMES 2009兲 Program, orga-
sponse coordination and collaborative decision making is pro-
nized by the college of engineering at UIUC. During these
vided. The framework employs a visualization interface to present
sessions, the CP2R collaboration framework was demonstrated.
geospatial conditions of the disaster and resource availabilities
The girls were given the opportunity to explore the five sub-
through a GIS interface. On a digital map, not only available
systems. The demonstration provided a highly valuable source of
resources but also building damage assessment information is
insight and perspective for the research and identified various
shown to meeting participants. Based on the information, decision
system refinements including exception handling for unexpected
makers hold web meetings, through the framework, to discuss and
user input. A survey of system improvements was collected from
give professional assessments for critical decision making. As a
60 middle school girls and four firefighter trainers. On March 1,
result, the collaboration framework expedites decision making
2008, the framework was tested by 10 graduate students in par-
through application sharing and varies meeting controls. In addi-
allel with a technical rescue and hazardous material exercise at
tion, situational awareness is enhanced through the information
the IFSI conducted by the Illinois Army National Guard. Three
that the framework provides to the on-site first responders. Func-
partially and totally collapsed buildings were assessed through the
tionalities provided by the CP2R collaboration framework address
BAS with RFID tags. A required resource was requested through
challenges such as 共1兲 interorganizational and intraorganizational
the ARMS interface and a simulation resource allocation route
coordination; 共2兲 a lack of communication infrastructure; 共3兲 un-
analysis was performed. Fig. 8 shows pictures of field tests at the
available building document retrieval; 共4兲 ineffective propagation
IFSI with the training of first response units alongside. Tests and
of building assessment information; 共5兲 inconsistent building as-
results can be found in papers published from the same research
sessment markings; 共6兲 unavailable resource inventory; and 共7兲
group 共Chen et al. 2008; Peña-Mora et al. 2008; Tsai et al. 2008;
inefficient resource deployment. Thus, the efficiency of executing
Aziz et al. 2009兲.
life-saving operations, such as US&R, could potentially be im-
A key objective of the aforementioned field tests is to compare
proved by the framework.
process improvement using tools discussed in this paper with ex-
Future implementations of the CP2R collaboration framework
isting procedures. To ensure effective comparisons “the Charrette
are to solve barriers discovered from field testing. Research will
test method” was used 共Clayton et al. 1998; Peña-Mora et al.
continue to focus on further expansion of subsystems and further
2008兲, which is intended to increase the reliability and validity for
validation of the framework through the interaction with EMAs
exploratory research in comparison with other commonly used
such as the IFSI, Champaign County EMA, and Massachusetts
research methods. The field tests serve as technology demonstra-
Task Force I.
tors that identify requirements difficult to discover in a laboratory
environment.
During the field tests, keen interest toward the CP2R collabo-
Acknowledgments
ration framework was shown by the professionals. Many barriers Many people and organizations have contributed to this work.
such as cost, technology adoption, and usability issues were iden- The writers would like to thank NSF for their support of Award