Computational public safety in emergency management communications

Communications are very important in any situation but in emergency management it is imperative that the communications be reliable and responsive to the evolving situation. In emergency management there are many different types of networks with different objectives. It is of immense value to have the ability to seamlessly integrate other networks and computing resources into one interconnected heterogeneous network. The entire management team should be able to access any of the individual networks and their resources. In this paper we discuss various wireless network communication options in the context of their viability for use in emergency management. We analyze various technical aspects such as propagation delay, packet delivery ratio, and transmission rates. In addition the environmental conditions that impair communications are discussed. All experiments we conducted took place in a setting that was real, using real equipment that was physically situated in settings that can be expected in urban disaster settings--our results are not simulations. They were performed in cooperation with the Ontario Provincial Police, Provincial Emergency Response Team.