Transportation Testbed

The goal of this testbed is to provide a platform for testing and validating information technology and social science research within the context of regional crisis response. In facilitating this goal, four major research thrust areas are identified: 1) information collection; 2) information analysis; 3) information sharing; and 4) information dissemination. Some of the key considerations that are being addressed include:

• Testbed must allow a real-world evaluation of the efficacy of information technologies in crisis response.
• To test, evaluate and validate information technology research, the testbed has been setup to include two major components: an information technology and social science (IT-SS) component, and a simulation component.
• The purpose of the IT-SS component is to develop methodologies and tools that will allow for more rapid evaluation of damage in large disasters, for better communication of data and information between critical response organizations (e.g., first responders, decision-makers) and the public. The ultimate goal of these technologies is to mitigate the secondary impacts of large regional disasters, i.e., preventing cascading failures or incidents.
• The purpose of the simulation component is to serve as a surrogate for real-world conditions in a disaster. This component must be able to simulate results with and without the use of improved information technologies in order to estimate their efficacies.
• Information Technology and Social Science research shall include:
  • Dynamic data collection, e.g., loop sensors
  • Event extraction
  • Damage detection using remote sensing
  • Social networks, unreliable information analysis
  • Publish-subscribe based event integration
  • Real-time DEVO (Dynamic and Evolving Virtual Organizations) middleware
  • Trust management
  • Contextualize dissemination and robust ABC networking
  • Information diffusion models
  • Social factors and information release (panic modeling)
  • Evacuation and response
• Simulation models will be used to approximate the following conditions or physical states: a) regional earthquake damage to buildings; b) casualty levels from building damage and exposure to hazardous materials; c) the fragility of critical bridge structures; d) traffic patterns - in a metropolitan context - before and after a large disaster, e.g., earthquake; e) the behavior of mass populations after large disasters; f) driver behavior in mass evacuations, g) incident reports from emergency response organizations, e.g., police, fire and ambulances; and h) the release and spread of gaseous hazardous materials.