Humanitarian aid, emergency management and law enforcement support applications
HARMLESS aimed to promote the use of the applications of the European navigation satellite systems in the areas of emergency management, humanitarian aid and law enforcement, paying special attention to the cases where EGNOS and Galileo (as compared to GPS) are the enablers for those applications. The HARMLESS project encouraged dialogue between two different worlds: the GNSS sector and the user communities of emergency management, humanitarian aid and law enforcement. The project established a platform that can serve as a future reference. Demonstrations looked at:
• damage assessment for humanitarian aid;
• people tracking, covert surveillance and as legal evidence for law enforcement;
• flood and fire management and resource management for the emergency management community.
The project followed various steps:
• analysis of different missions where GNSS can play a relevant role;
• identification of the use of GNSS applications (in combination with other technologies) for these missions;
• analysis of the added value of EGNOS and Galileo;
• demonstration of some applications in the fields of emergency management, humanitarian aid and law enforcement.
Results
• Better knowledge of the user communities, based on the participation of a wide range of members of these communities.
• In-depth analysis of applications that were identified as the most promising for these user communities, including requirements, architecture, market assessment, cost benefit analysis, standardisation and regulation aspects.
• A demonstration of the benefits of EGNOS and Galileo for some of the most relevant applications for the three user communities:
——support to damage assessment for humanitarian aid;
——people tracking, covert surveillance and as legal evidence for law enforcement;
——support for flood and fire management, and for resource management for the emergency management community.
• The creation of lasting links between the GNSS industry and the three user communities to keep a continuous information exchange.
• A clear vision of the future steps to be taken to increase the penetration of GNSS and specifically Galileo and EGNOS within the user communities’ activities, including recommendations for specific R & D projects, focusing on the applications evaluated as very promising and beneficial for the users.
Recommendations for the next generation of Galileo services
• Alert dissemination service (ADS): One of the main needs identified during the project is the use of GNSS systems to ensure the rapid dissemination of alerts, with many benefits for emergency management.
• Emergency coordination communication service (ECCS): The use of GNSS could also allow the dissemination of other information related to disasters or emergency situations, such as identifying
evacuation routes. At the moment, the Galileo search and rescue support service does not include this kind of service.
