Modeling an emergency operations center with agents

• Published in: Proceedings of the Winter Simulation Conference, 2005 p. 9 pp.
• Main Authors: Loper, M.L., Presnell, B.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 2005
• Subjects: Adaptive systems; Analytical models; Communication system operations and management; Content addressable storage; Disaster management; Information analysis; Personnel; Production facilities; Sociotechnical systems; Terrorism
• ISBN: 0780395190; 9780780395190
• ISSN: 0891-7736; 1558-4305
• DOI: 10.1109/WSC.2005.1574337

The Georgia Emergency Management Agency (GEMA) operates the State Operations Center, which is the centralized hub for all communications regarding state operations, with respect to emergency response. The center provides three primary functions: request for information, request for assistance, and media relations. The center has responsibility for the entire process of servicing an emergency, from instigation to communication to execution to ending service for the emergency. To accomplish this, the center is set up like a production facility, which follows a well-defined process articulated in a plan. In this project, we worked with GEMA to develop a simulation of the center. The simulation, called GEMASim, models the information flow among people working within the center, as well as the flow of information coming into and leaving the center. Data is presented on the initial experiments with GEMASim using two different scenarios.