Helping the public help emergency responders

During crises, members of the public are often already at the scene and sometimes in large numbers. The public can be a boon for emergency responders, reacting quickly and showing potentially life-saving leadership.

Yet, the resource is underutilised by emergency services. The EU-funded ATHENA (Athena) project aims to encourage and assist ethical public participation in situations, using software tools for social media and mobile devices. The study will also identify best practice guidelines. Resulting tools are meant to enable efficient acquisition, analysis and dissemination of event information. The outcome will be improved security during emergencies and in search and rescue operations. The 14-member consortium runs for three years to late 2016.

During the first reporting period, work involved identification of user groups through consultation with interested parties. The identified users, including emergency responders, were then questioned about their prior experiences with social media. A set of workshops helped to conclude the phase of defining user requirements.

The initial feedback was incorporated into the design of prototypes, intended for further user refinement. ATHENA also identified the legal and ethical restraints affecting the project, plus the constraints affecting cognition in highly stressful situations. The consortium reviewed the subject literature, yielding a set of best practice guidelines.

First-year efforts saw delivery of several software prototypes, including crowd sourcing tools and a crisis mapping application. The team also created various testing scenarios, to be tested on the second generation of prototypes.

ATHENA plans a set of software tools enabling utilisation of a citizen-based emergency resource. The development will mean more effective crisis response.