The DRIVER+ project staged a successful Final Demonstration in Poland and The Netherlands
The three-day event saw players representing the different components of the European Civil Protection Mechanism - Firefighting Module teams from Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, The Netherlands and Austria; the Emergency Response Coordination Centre and EU Civil Protection Teams - simulate the deployment and use of firefighting teams and assets from the donor countries to a fictional country - ‘Driverstan’ - where persistent wildfires had overwhelmed local resources and at one stage also threatened a refugee camp, requiring an orderly evacuation. The objective was to evaluate the various technological solutions for creating and sharing across agencies and borders a dynamically updated Common Operational Picture (COP) using the project's Trial Guidance Methodology. Delivering such a COP is the key to efficient, successful crisis management because it optimizes the effectiveness of the limited resources available. The solutions used by the various crisis management teams were: Socrates OC from GMV, vieWTerra Evolution from VWORLD, CrisisSuite from Merlin Software, Drone Rapid Mapping from Creotech Instruments and the Field Reporting Tool developed by the European Commission Joint Research Centre. Each of these solutions was integrated using the DRIVER+ Test-bed Technical Infrastructure and independently assessed by observers and participants. This Final Demonstration event represents the culmination of several years of conducting trials, intense research and best practice development by the different partners of the pan-European, EU-funded DRIVER+ project. The main organiser and the leader of the preparation process of the Final Demonstration was the Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences, supported by the Main School of Fire Service in Warsaw. The event took place in three different locations simultaneously: The Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Main School of Fire Service, both in Warsaw/Poland, and the Safety Region Haaglanden in The Hague/The Netherlands. DRIVER+ is a pan-European project designed to build Europe's resilience to climate-related crisis situations, such as wildfires and flooding, as well as to other threats such as earthquakes, industrial accidents and terrorism. A key focus is helping crisis management organisations evaluate and select the best (technological) solutions for supporting enhanced emergency management, based on clear, objective criteria using the Trial Guidance Methodology. Drones, advanced crisis management solutions and cross-border cooperation all featured strongly in the Final Demonstration and evaluation. The partners and associated specialists and solutions providers will be outlining the DRIVER+ project and Final Demonstration findings at the Final Conference in Brussels on 19-20 February 2020. They will be also supporting broader dissemination of the results through an active programme of media activities, publications and online and social media promotion.