Impact of Cultural aspects in the management of emergencies in public Transport

Project Information

IMPACT

Grant agreement ID: 653383

DOI

10.3030/653383

Project closed

EC signature date 28 April 2015

Start date 1 May 2015

End date 31 October 2017

Funded under

• Secure societies - Protecting freedom and security of Europe and its citizens

Total cost

€ 1 398 912,50

EU contribution

€ 1 398 912,50

Coordinated by

DEEP BLUE SRL
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - IMPACT (Impact of Cultural aspects in the management of emergencies in public Transport)

Reporting period: 2016-05-01 to 2017-10-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The IMPACT CSA is investigating the essential role played by cultural factors in preventing and managing safety and security issues related to emergencies in Public Transport hubs. Transports hubs are central parts of modern cities and the cornerstone of a future completely multicultural civic life. Moreover, Transport hubs are very crowded environments in which many security and safety events may arise, from terrorists attacks to natural disaster and accidents. The project aims at analysing the different cultural behaviours that are relevant for the prevention of emergencies and for the management of emergency events and post-events. In particular, the high- level objectives of the IMPACT CSA are:1) Analysing how psychological and social-cultural peculiarities can affect the way crowds engage in restoration and recover from disaster; 2) Anticipating problems and identifying solutions to cultural problems that may arise in the event of an emergency in Transport Hubs;3) Improving the effectiveness of those who respond to disasters by better meeting the needs of various cultures during disaster relief, improving reaction time and reducing fatalities; 4) Increasing hubs’ preparedness for, and ability to, recover from emergencies; 5) Providing a framework for improving disasters’ policies and practices by taking into consideration every disaster victim’s cultural and personal uniqueness. To ensure the achievements of the above objectives, IMPACT delivered the following outcomes, customised for inter-modal Transport Hubs:1) A cultural risk assessment methodology and the associated mitigation actions for the public transport hub sector; 2) An agent-based computational models to simulate and validate cultural behaviours models and cultural-specific communication solutions; 3) Innovative solutions that can support public transport operators in improving the communication with passengers through dedicated messages to the different cultural groups, and other solutions to enhance the management of emergencies, considering cultural aspects; 4) A dedicated multi-lingual Computer-Based Training (CBT) material and procedures for both public transport operators and first responders; 5) Best practices and policy recommendations for policy makers, regulators, municipalities and public transport operators. All the above mentioned outcomes have been validated with Transport Stakeholders, Safety and Security experts and Forst Responders in emergencies. A potential generalisation of IMPACT results to other mass gathering events and domains has been analysed and discussed. The IMPACT Consortium comprises 8 partners from 6 countries, including SMEs, Universities, one Large Company and a Public Body. The composition of the Consortium reflects the inherent intercultural and interdisciplinary approach of the project. All partners supported dissemination and coordination activities with relevant stakeholders in their countries and at international level in the 3 involved transport domains.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The second IMPACT Reporting Period (RP2 - M13-M30) was dedicated to the following main activities:
• development of the IMPACT Theoretical Framework;
• finalisation and validation of the Agent Based Models;
• definition and validation of the cultural based Risk Assessment methodology;
• elicitation of the multicultural Emergency Communication Guidelines;
• design, development and assessment of the multicultural Training Package;
• generalisation of IMPACT supporting measures to other domains and recommendations for policy makers.
During the second Reporting Period of the IMPACT CSA, management and coordination activities were central to ensure a continuous mutual understanding and a fruitful information exchange among the partners, monitor the agreed quality standards and ethical procedures, support and exploit the interactions with the ESG, mantain the tools and templates for internal project collaboration and carry out all the formal communication and reporting with the European Commission.
In RP2 main IMPACT CSA Supporting Measures have designed, developed and validated with end-users and ESG members and have been disseminated and presented to a broader audience of potential stakeholders thanks to Coordination Activities.
Project results were widely disseminated within scientific community and specialised audiences through the participation to relevant events and conferences in the field. As reported in D7.3 14 papers on the project results were submitted and presented within these events. Indeed, Project partners, especially those from academia and universities, attended a remarkable number of conferences being able to present, disseminate and promote project achievements and main findings.
The main exploitable results and the opportunity for the multiplication of the IMPACT results were reported in D7.3.
For each of the main exploitable results such as: IMPACT Theoretical Framework, IMPACT Agent Based Models, Cultural risk assessment methodology, Cultural-based emergency communication guidelines and the cultural based training package; the following information were reported:
• Type of Exploitable Foreground
• Description
• Exploitable product (market perspective) or measures, how it will be exploited (services) of the results
• Users, clients, sector(s) of application
• Timetable, commercial or any other use
• Patents or other IPR exploitation (licences).
• Owner & Other Beneficiary(s) involved

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Maim progress beyond the state of the art of the IMPACT CSA was to WP1 develop a theoretical model of cross-cultural and psycho-social crowd behaviour and management in transport terminals, encompassing previous research, new data collections and video analyses, Agent-based Models testing and assessment of reasearch findings and their operational validation with transport stakeholders.
Main results of the project are:
The IMPACT Theoretical Framework, the IMPACT Agent Based Models, the IMPACT Multi-cultural Risk Assessment Methodology, the IMPACT Multi-cultural Communication Guidelines and the IMPACT Training Package.
The IMPACT supporting measures will help Transport Hub managers and first responders in better preventing and managing safety and security events involving multi-cultural crowds thus ensuring higher safety and security levels for the whole European society.