29th November 2018
Main goals of the first TTX
The IN-PREP team realized the first table-top exercise – TTX1 in Spoleto, Italy. Our main goal was to demonstrate and stress the early prototypes of the training platform, known as the Mixed Reality Preparedness Platform (MRPP) in the context of a training session to allow
- Dynamic building of the exercise scenario
- Multi-agency collaboration across the exercise timeline in accordance to regional and national response plans
The TTX played an “urban HazMat threat” scenario and required the participation of civil protection agencies (fire brigade, emergency medical, police and municipal services) at regional and municipal scale spanning different levels of command. Participants gathered around strategic, tactical and operational tables. After the IN-PREP Training Platform functionalities and main steps of the scenario and process was explained – the TTX started.
What did we learn?
Our 1st TTX proved very useful from various perspectives:
Action
Early prototypes were tested allowing the developers to evaluate performance and a large inventory of CBRN-threat scenarios (hazard and location specific) has been created providing direct feedback to update relevant response plans;
Stakeholders – users
Participants witnessed an advanced training session in which various IT tools (scenario builder, training environment, C2 and modeling tools) were interconnected to enhance their training and allow them to experiment on optimal response planning. Moreover, the 1st TTX showed the need of additional familiarization of the participants with the technology that can ease and optimise their operating procedures prior to their trainings.
System
The expectation is for the delivery of more functions and showcasing technical interoperability. On the practitioners’ perspective, the goal is to improve collaboration at all stages of the training session. As the system progresses we would like to allow for multiple trainers to build realistic scenarios and initiate the process of evaluating response plans within the training session towards improved decision making and multi-agency collaboration.
Coming up next
Our team is currently preparing the second TTX “Evacuation of a cruise ship”. We are capitalising on knowledge gained from the first TTX and shall advance the functionalities of the Mixed Reality Preparedness Platform (MRPP) according to user requirements and associated use cases.
We warmly invite you to participate in the upcoming TTX in Savona, Italy on the 17th of June 2019, when we test the second iteration of the MRPP prototype – Be part of the making of effective collaborative training for disaster management.
Written by IN-PREP project manager Evangelos Sdongos of ICCS.
Images by Johanna Varghese of Carr Communications
ICCS is the project coordinator of IN-PREP and undertakes research and development of the pre-integration phase of the Mixed Reality Preparedness Platform to achieve the interoperable information exchange of the system. The ICCS team lead on the innovation development and the micro-projects realisation for novel technologies, which contribute to the development of the Mixed Reality Preparedness Platform. Furthermore, ICCS will collaborate six other IN-PREP work packages technical and non-technical.
