Potential for location-based services

The approach taken to assessing the potential for LBS is adapted from Klein et al. (1997). Actions taken during the incident that include location as a critical factor are listed, together with why those actions are difficult and how decisions are currently made. Possible information that could be delivered by LBS is then listed in Table 3.2 and Table 3.3.

Applications are divided into two tables for clarity. Table 3.2 shows applications that are geographically referenced. Table 3.3 shows applications that are more likely to require, geographical data sources.

Action Why Difficult? How decisions are made LBS Find safe routes into

building

High risk operational environment. Dynamic environment. Limited time due to physical demands and oxygen requirements of crews

Overall impression of fire. Type of structure. Location of hazards or casualties. Sometimes, static 3D CAD models available.

Interactive model of building layout with data representing distance and time.

Find safe routes out of building

High risk operational environment. Dynamic Environment. Limited time due to physical demands and oxygen requirements of crews.

Guidelines laid on way into building

Representation of location within the building. Service directing the firefighter to specific points in the building. Indication of time and distance travelled. Display of alternative routes if hazards occur.

Search & Rescue (Uncertain location)

High risk operational environment. Sometimes risk to crew outweighs the benefit of rescue. Limited time due to oxygen requirements

Dependent on state of fire. Size of building is critical. Potential knowledge from MDT data

Planning aid to direct search attempts or segment building into areas. Fastest search route planning. Fastest exit if necessary. Device to direct individual crew members to a location.

Search & Rescue (Known/ suspected location)

High risk operational environment. Sometimes risk to crew outweighs the benefit of rescue. Limited time due to oxygen requirements.

Dependent on state of fire. Size of building is critical. Potential knowledge from MDT data

Aid to guide firefighters to specific location within building Fastest exit if necessary

Action Why Difficult? How decisions are made LBS

Fight Fire – Model selection

Dynamic situation that requires continuous updating. Requires dynamic assessment of risk with many variables. Choice dictates whether to commit crews into building

Key decision node concerns risk to crew. Relies on prior experience of situation and location. Relies on spatially distributed data sources: reports, data gathering crews, MDT information, thermal imaging, knowledge of building structure and type.

Display all information in one place. Predicted movement of fire through building, access points and location of any known hazards or casualties within structure.

Fight Fire – Positioning of jets

The need to co-ordinate many resources in the correct locations. Access to and knowledge about fire ground and appropriate water supplies is key.

Prior knowledge about local water mains and fire ground. Walking around fire ground. Taking into account future movement of fire within structure

Represent fire ground and jets. Ability to create what-if scenarios. Visualizing spread of water jets or cooling effects on spread of fire. Show location and size of water mains. Infer resource

requirements.

Protect Public

Balancing risk with the need to keep roads, shops etc open. Knowledge of peripheral hazards required which may not be obvious

Prior knowledge of environment. Macro view of area showing key access routes or hazards, e.g. petrol stations. Places where many people congregate – pubs, halls, shops. Appraisal of fire behaviour leads decisions.

Macro level view of area indicating specific public risks given particular movement of fire.

Conflation of weather and thermal data to predict movement of fires. Especially to include modelling the dispersion of smoke or fumes. Protect surrounding structures

Requires prediction of fire spread and knowledge of the structure and contents of nearby buildings.

Visual search and local

knowledge. Walk – around. MDT data if available. Some integration of thermal data if available.

Representation of surrounding structures and distance to seat of fire. Data about fire loadings of surrounding buildings

3.5 Discussion

The first part of this chapter provides an overview of the management of a large incident from an experienced incident commander. The knowledge developed by using the CDM process has highlighted many potential applications for LBS. Many of these applications would be required to deliver geographic information or other information referenced by geospatial data.

The data suggest that many activities are driven by tacit or local knowledge about the area. When attending very large incidents with crews from multiple locations this knowledge is likely to be diluted or even absent. Mobile LBS may go some way to bootstrapping responder’s ‘local’ knowledge of the fire ground leading to good decisions being made

Much of the time information is not present when required. A mobile LBS has the potential to deliver rapidly changing information immediately. Additionally, other sources of information; casualty location, hot-spots, wind direction can be fused with current location to provide highly context-specific, relevant advice to the individual. In order to provide these services, it is important to consider not only the

technological requirements of any such system e.g. positioning technologies, data interoperability, but the ability of the operator to interpret and interact with any data which is displayed by such a device.

The analytical aims described at the start of chapter three are revisited: • To establish the scope for the incorporation of LBS into the fire ground. • To identify when decisions are based on or affected by geographic information Both analytical aims are reviewed and the critical human factors challenges of providing such information are discussed.

To establish the scope for the incorporation of LBS into the fire ground.

Reliable LBS could provide essential real time data to most personnel attending an incident. The data suggest that geographic information at both the command level and the response level would have a positive effect on service response. At the command level, delivering information about wind and fire direction, resources and local information would inform strategy. At the response level, delivering maps, plans and information about causality or hazard location would reduce risk to the crews.

Human factors must be a central component of delivering LBS onto the fire ground. Fire crews must respond quickly to changing information and communicate

geographic information to each other during the course of an incident. Understanding how geographic information; for example, maps or plans are interpreted and acted on is central to delivering location-based information.

To identify when decisions are based on or affected by geographic information

Most decisions made during the incident described have some geographic

component to them. Resource requirements, allocation and position are determined by the immediate geography of the incident. Strategies which reduce risk to the local population are decided by examining hazards in the local area or predicting the spread of fire using wind direction or thermal imaging techniques. Finally, the approach to fire fighting and the behaviour of the firefighters themselves is dictated by the layout of the building or area. Firefighters are required to communicate their position and actions, and be aware of the environment they are in. Essentially, decisions are made by conflating different sources of information. Underlying these sources of information are location and position in relation to other features in the

The CDM is not without methodological limitations. One significant area of controversy is the quality of verbal data reports when describing events which happen in the past. Additionally, ‘think-aloud’ research can change the way that individuals report, reason about or remember incidents (Wilson and Schooler, 1991 and especially Ericsson and Simon, 1993). A more pragmatic approach is taken to this problem by Hoffman et al. (1998) who acknowledge the problems with verbal, retrospective reports, as used in the CDM, but suggest that the technique itself does much to reduce this problem. Developing a detailed scenario, structured by the experts themselves, increases the accuracy of recall over and above simply asking a series of questions. Additionally, CDM has been shown to be beneficial in a range of mission-critical applications including the military (Klein et al., 1997;Bolstad et al., 2002), transport (O'Hare et al., 1998) and medicine (Crandall and Getchell-Reiter, 1993). The successful, real world application of the results of the CDM to these applications speaks for itself when examining the validity of the technique.

Many opportunities for mobile location-based support during an incident are evident from this interview. The problems involved in navigating during large incidents are especially emphasised. The ability to be safely guided in or out of an incident, to locate hazards or navigate to trapped individuals is especially important. The second part of this research will focus specifically on navigation in the fire service and how LBS could be used to support successfully.