Using model-based simulation for augmenting Incident Command System for disaster response

The National Incident Management System has become the dominant organizational model for the management of emergency and disaster response and recovery operations. The Incident Command System (ICS) provides reporting and operational templates that structure activities and the management of resources and communications during an incident or event. In an emergency situation, information can be sometimes contradictory and may not be “clean”. In order for Command Officers to maintain good situation awareness of these dynamic situations, the system should be able to adapt by taking into account the type of information available, the specific task at hand, and knowledge derived from the information integration agent. This paper presents a design of ICS model and discusses the simulation architecture to support ICS commanders to potentially minimize cognitive load on decision makers, exploit semantic relationships in reports and sensor data to advice of invisible occurrences to better reflect ongoing developments during crisis management.