Decision support system for emergency management: Road tunnels

Recent disasters have shown that road tunnels are especially complex environments for decision making. A fast and effective response to emergencies in road tunnels is a key factor for life safety. This paper presents a decision support system (DSS) for emergency management in road tunnels. Based on a specific methodology, the system provides the operator with decision recommendations to deal with the emergency in real time. Furthermore, the system uses predictive tools to estimate the severity of the accident or incident, as well as rescue and evacuation times. This information is very useful during the first stages of an emergency when information is scarce, incomplete and inaccurate, yet the tunnel operator is required to make the right decisions under a high level of stress. The DSS reduces the decision circle and allows the operator to make critical decisions based on dynamic alternatives. The system has been tested in various hypothetical emergency cases based on the Tunnel of Lantueno in the A-67 Highway, Spain. The application cases show that the DSS provides reasonable and consistent results.

► This paper presents a decision support system for emergency management in road tunnels.
► The DSS is an integration of three models: Incidents model, Evacuation model and Decision model.
► The DSS analyses the current situation and guides the course of decisions to deal with the emergency.
► The system provides real-time estimation of the severity of the accident, required safe egress time and rescue times.
► The DSS has been tested in various hypothetical emergency cases based on a tunnel in Spain.