DRIVER+ is assisting Crisis Management practitioners in finding the best way to address
disasters that require complex responses. The second DRIVER+ Trial will be held from 22 to 26
October in France at the premises of Entente Valabre, a public Civil Protection support
organisation. The Trial will be entirely carried out in a simulated virtual environment, where
practitioners will be presented with a timeline of events related to the outbreak of a wildfire,
which will be followed by a growing threat to the nearby population as well as several
casualties, and cascading effects on a chemical plant. It will assess how innovative sociotechnical
solutions can improve the quality of information exchange between practitioners
and authorities in the context of a large forest fire in a cross-border Mediterranean
environment. The solutions trialled will focus on supporting firefighters, Emergency Medical
Services, and the Environmental Protection Agency and authorities by setting up a
coordination framework that provides them with an overview of response operations,
successfully manages the information exchanges in the most efficient way and integrates
social media into the disaster management operations.
70 attendants are expected at Trial 2, including Crisis Management practitioners from several
European countries, solution providers and observers. This second Trial will deliver important
feedback to the DRIVER+ Test-bed (the software tools, middleware and methodology used to
conduct the Trials), contributing to the project development and the upcoming Trials. The
results of the assessment of the solutions will be stored in the DRIVER+ Portfolio of Solutions,
the online database-driven website that everyone can access to learn more about innovative
Crisis Management solutions, thus contributing to a greater understanding for a wider
audience.