Communicating a crisis

European nations are improving the way they cooperate in a crisis following

first ever

user demonstration trial of OASIS, the Open Advanced System for dISaster and emergency management.

The trial comes after the BAE Systems Advanced Technology Centre recently played a key role in the EADS led consortium surrounding the project.

According to a statement, OASIS aims to change the process of information flow in command and control systems that are set up to support rescue operations. This is particularly important in the case of large-scale emergencies such as the New Orleans flooding or the Buncefield oil depot fire.

The trial, held at Cranfield’s Shrivenham-based Resilience Centre, brought the seemless communication between emergency services in Europe closer to reality as more than 50 senior users from the emergency services and an international team of civil contingencies experts, gained hands-on experience of a proof-of-system demonstrator.

The three-day practical simulation included a real-time disaster scenario and gave control room and field staff the opportunity to share over 150 separate pieces of information with their French counterparts, also testing the system at EADS in Bois d’Arcy, Paris.