In fact, such a system fills a gap, in-between outdoor, real-size roleplays, and indoor, analysis of predefined scenarios. The partners of the TARANIS project already have the experience of such simulation tools in the defense sector for the preparation of the forces. The goal of the project is to adapt this dual technologies toward civilian and corporate crisis managers.

A tool dedicated to the trainer’s needs

The role and the multiplicity of trainers is crucial in order to confront crisis managers to complex situations, involving many actors, chain reaction effects and the influence of media. These t rainers may be crisis management experts, agents of organizations involved in ground operations, political representatives, or members of the media. Thanks to simulation systems, trainers can collaborate on recreating a virtual crisis situation that reacts to their actions and to the trainees decisions. Moreover, it allows trainers to communicate effectively to trainees their view of the situation.

Debriefing improvement

Training recording allow a unprecedented control over the debriefing stage thanks to detailled replay of events in their context, a posteriori decision analysis, and, when using past crisis scenarios, comparison between trainees actions and what really happened. Moreover, this ability to efficiently analyze training sessions is crucial to provide a reference scale for measuring progress and comparing trainees.

Behavioural Simulation

The DirectIA® artificial intelligence suite from MASA allows to simulate crisis participants. Thus, it becomes possible to involve in the crisis situation, not only civilian populations, but also the entire chain of command of various public safety organizations, involved at different hierarchical levels in crisis management.

Learning to cooperate

On one side, collaborative human-machine interfaces, creates an immersive situation that helps trainees to focus on the pedagogical goals of the training session. On the other side, computer simulation allows distributed training sessions, engaging simultaneously crisis managers coming from different organizations, or involving several hierarchical levels of the same organization.

Thanks to these technologies, it becomes possible to test crucial aspects of crisis management, for example, the appropriate collaboration mode between the organizations involved, and these organizations ability to share information and responsibilities.

The crisis situation, represented by the simulation during the training session, can be shared between trainees and trainers, collocated or not, through computer networks. This makes possible a new kind of training, bypassing, for example, scale or inter-organizational difficulties.

Simulation integrated into operational systems

Crisis managers relying on C4I systems require to be trained on these systems, in operational conditions. For the moment this is only possible through real-size and expensive ground exercises. However, thanks to software simulation, trainees can continue to use their C4I operational tools to visualize and interact with the virtual crisis situation, including virtual field operators. This is the training paradigm used for example in the SCIPIO system, the French Army training simulation for brigade- and battalion-level headquarters. In fact, headquarters are deployed on the field in actual battle conditions, but their C4I system is connected to a training center. Even if the military has always been ahead of the civilian sector in this area, the use of C4I systems and GIS has recently become widespread for civilian crisis management. Thus, the TARANIS project aims at connecting its training platform with existing GIS from ESRI (world leader in GIS), in order to transform them into training tools.

Decision support system

The ability of the simulation to both play crisis scenarios and analyze the results of decisions allows using the system as a decision support tool. In fact, it gives managers, coming from different public and private organizations the opportunity to collaborate on emergency plans, which then can be tested and validated by simulating the crisis and analyzing its consequences. The system can also be used to stimulate other decision support and C4I systems in close to actual conditions, in order to test and validate their performances.

Applications

The TARANIS project is funded by the French national research agency (ANR). The project will have a two-year duration. By the end of 2008 a training platform for crisis managers will be deployed in Le Havre harbor, on the Atlantic coast of France. With its 200 000 inhabitants and 18 Seveso-grade industrial sites, Le Havre has been for 10 years a reference in the field of risks prevention and disaster preparedness. Large scale training exercises are already taking place in Le Havre, involving different public safety organizations, political representatives and corporate managers. The TARANIS platform will be connected to existing tools based on ESRI technology.

Experts involved in the project

Patrick Lagadec: Director of Research at the Ecole Polytechnique, he has been studying crisis risks for 20 years

Christophe Roux-Dufort: Teaches Strategic Management at the EM Lyon business school, he is focusing especially on corporate crisis management and organizational changes

Jean-Luc Marret : Fellow Researcher at Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique. He is an expert on security, CRBN terrorism

Claude-Olivier Martin : is in charge of the national coordination of the French Red Cross