DLR – Institute of Transportation Systems, Traffic Management Research

Vorstellung der 4 Arbeitsfelder der Abteilung Verkehrsmanagemen

Trialing Innovative Technologies in Crisis Management - “Airborne and Terrestrial Situational Awareness” as Support Tool in Flood Response

Flooding represents the most-occurring and deadliest threats worldwide among natural disasters. Consequently, new technologies are constantly developed to improve response capacities in crisis management. The remaining challenge for practitioner organizations is not only to identify the best solution to their individual demands, but also to test and evaluate its benefit in a realistic environment before the disaster strikes. To bridge the gap between theoretic potential and actual integration into practice, the EU-funded project DRIVER+ has designed a methodical and technical environment to assess innovation in a realistic but non-operational setup through trials. The German Aerospace Center (DLR) interdisciplinary merged mature technical developments into the “Airborne and terrestrial situational awareness” system and applied it in a DRIVER+ Trial to promote a sustainable and demand-oriented R&D. Experienced practitioners assessed the added value of its modules “KeepOperational” and “ZKI” in the context of large-scale flooding in urban areas. The solution aimed at providing contextual route planning in police operations and extending situational awareness based on information derived through aerial image processing. The user feedback and systematically collected data through the DRIVER + Test-bed approved that DLR’s system could improve transport planning and situational awareness across organizations. However, the results show a special need to consider, for example, cross-domain data-fusion techniques to provide essential 3D geo-information to effectively support specific response tasks during flooding

Learning from past Disasters to Improve Crisis Management

In the event of a disaster the coordinated response of emergency services is crucial for saving lives and protecting critical infrastructure. Efficient communication and access to relevant information are essential elements in the immediate aftermath and all phases of the crisis management cycle to maintain public safety. As part of the European Commission funded FP7 project EPISECC (Establish Pan-European Information Space to Enhance Security of Citizens), an inventory of past disasters and critical events was developed. Information was obtained by systematic interviews with experts active in the field of crisis and disaster management on both national and international level. They represent organisations such as first responders, emergency services and civil protection offices from 15 EU (European Union) countries. The paper will outline several aspects such as the quality of information exchange between crisis managers and the analysis of key recommendations for improvement identified during the management of past disasters

Towards a Pan-European Information Space

ABSTRACT When disasters occur, key factors for minimizing damages and loss of lives are access to necessary information and effective communication between emergency services. In cross-border disaster management, further challenges arise: language barriers, uneven know-how, organisational and technical differences in particular concerning communication and data or information exchange. To address those challenges, the FP7-Project EPISECC (Establish Pan-European Information Space to Enhance Security of Citizens) is working on the concept of a common information space to improve interoperability and efficiency while managing cross-border disasters. This involves researching on a common taxonomy and ontology as well as on interoperability functionalities and tools. A first step on this direction is the analysis of how disasters have been and are being managed. This paper reports on an inventory of disasters designed to consolidate such knowledge and aimed at being the basis for this information space. First gaps identified in communication/information management are also presented

DLR – Institute of Transportation Systems, Traffic Management Research

Vorstellung der 4 Arbeitsfelder der Abteilung Verkehrsmanagemen

OIS - An optical information system for road traffic measurement and management

OIS is a new Optical Information System for road traffic observation and management. The complete system architecture from the sensor for automatic traffic detection up to the treffic light management for a wide area is designed under the requirements of an intelligent transportation system. Particular features of this system are the vision sensors with integrated computational and real-time capabilities, real-time algorithms for image processing and a new approach for dynamic traffic light management for a single intersection as well as for a wide area. The developed real-time algorithms for image processing extract traffic data even at night and under bad weather conditions. This approach opens the opportunity to identify and specify each traffic objects, its location, its speed and other important object information. Furthermore the algorithms are able to identify accidents and non-motorized traffic like pedestrians and bicyclists. Combining all these single information the system creates new derivate and consolidated information. This leads to a new and more complete view on the traffic situation of an intersection. Only by this a dynamic and real-time traffic light management is possible. to optimize a wide area traffic management it is neccessary to improve the modelling and forecasting of traffic flow. Therefore the information of the current Origin-Destination (OD) flow is essentially. Taking this into account OIS also includes an approach for anonymous vehicle recognition. This approach is based on single object characteristics. order of objects and forecast information. which will be obtained from intersection to intersection

Learning from past Disasters to improve Crisis Management

In the event of a disaster the coordinated response of emergency services is crucial for saving lives and protecting critical infrastructure. Efficient communication and access to relevant information are essential elements in the immediate aftermath and all phases of the crisis management cycle to maintain public safety. As part of the European Commission funded FP7 project EPISECC (Establish Pan-European Information Space to Enhance Security of Citizens), an inventory of past disasters and critical events was developed. Information was obtained by systematic interviews with experts active in the field of crisis and disaster management on both national and international level. They represent organisations such as first responders, emergency services and civil protection offices from 15 EU (European Union) countries. The paper will outline several aspects such as the quality of information exchange between crisis managers and the analysis of key recommendations for improvement identified during the management of past disasters

Was ist eigentlich Qualität? - Versuch einer begrifflichen Konsolidierung und Systematik im Verkehrsmanagement

Qualität ist ein äußerst schillernder und zugleich sehr umfassender Begriff, der je nach Kontext sehr unterschiedlich interpretiert werden kann. Folglich reicht ein intuitives Verständnis in der Diskussion um die Qualität des Verkehrsmanagements und seiner Komponenten einschließlich der Möglichkeiten intelligenter Verkehrssysteme (IVS) in der Regel nicht aus, um das Thema angemessen zu beschreiben. Ausge-hend von einschlägigen Normen und gängiger Fachliteratur erläutert und systematisiert der vorliegende Artikel daher zunächst wichtige Grundbegriffe der Qualitätsbewertung im Verkehrsmanagement. Darauf aufbauend wird ein neues, erweitertes Verständnis von Qualität entwickelt, das diese konsequent als probabilistische Größe interpretiert und dabei gängige Vorstellungen der Qualitätsbewertung wie die Idee der Qualitätsmessung in natürlicher Weise integriert