Title: GENIMS – a user-centric and GIS-enabled incident management system

Authors: Faouzi Kamoun, Naoufel Werghi, Mohammed Al Blushi

Addresses: College of Information Technology, University of Dubai, P.O. Box 14143, Dubai, UAE. ' Department of Computer Engineering, Khalifa University, P.O. Box 573, Sharjah, UAE. ' Dubai Police, Operations Department, GIS Section, P.O. Box 2845, Dubai, UAE

Abstract: Ensuring a prompt and a coordinated response to emergency situations is vital to the operation of emergency response teams. In this research, we have worked with a local police department to analyse, design and develop an end-to-end and geographically-enabled incident management system (GENIMS). By blending some advanced information and communication technologies, including global positioning systems (GPS), geographic information systems (GIS), global system for mobile communications (GSM), SMS messaging and RDBMS, our system provides a coordinated mechanism for decision-making to ensure timely intervention in times of crisis. GENIMS also embeds powerful resource management capabilities, designed to help law enforcement officers identify, dispatch and track the needed resources. Preliminary validation results showed that GENIMS has the potential to help reduce incident response time and facilitate inter-agency communication. The experience reported herein can inspire other public safety agencies to develop their own IMS and customise it to their unique needs.

Keywords: incident management systems; IMS; crisis management; emergency response; geographic information systems; GIS; communications technology; decision support systems; DSS; emergency management; ICT; global positioning systems; GPS; global system for mobile communications; GSM; SMS messaging; RDBMS; relational databases; coordination; police response; law enforcement response; resource allocation; inter-agency communication; public safety agencies.

DOI: 10.1504/IJICT.2010.032406

International Journal of Information and Communication Technology, 2010 Vol.2 No.3, pp.167 - 185

Published online: 02 Apr 2010 *

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