Evaluation of automated emergency response systems

Automated Emergency Response (ER) systems are playing a greater role in providing prompt and reliable predictions of the impact of inadvertent releases of hazardous materials to the environment. Observed and forecast environmental and accident source term data are input into environmental transport and dispersion models to provide dosimetry estimates used as decision making aids for responding to emergencies. Several automated ER systems have been developed for US Federal Government facilities and many are available commercially. For such systems to be useful, they must reliably and consistently deliver a timely product to the decision makers. Evaluation of the entire ER system is essential to determine the performance that can be expected from the system during an emergency. Unfortunately, seldom are ER systems evaluated as a whole. Usually Quality Assurance programs evaluate the performance of individual components of the system. Most atmospheric pollution model evaluation methods usually involve an evaluation of the predictive performance of the transport and dispersion model when compared either with experimental tracer results or results from other models. Rarely, however, is the ability of the ER system to provide timely, reliable and consistent information evaluated. Such an evaluation is vital to determine the system performance during an emergency and to provide valuable information to aid in improving the system.