Identifying Technology Gaps in Hazardous Materials Operations

Our eventual goal is to design new decision support technologies to enhance understanding of fast-paced, uncertain hazardous materials (HAZMAT) response situations. Before developing improved technologies, we need to understand HAZMAT operations in practice as opposed to how it is presented in the manuals. To gain this understanding, we have been interviewing HAZMAT personnel and observing exercises. This paper presents an analysis of the communications that occurred among personnel, primarily in person or via radio, during three HAZMAT exercises (focusing on one day-long exercise in particular). This analysis allowed us to pinpoint problem areas that could potentially be addressed by decision support technologies. We provide our assessment of technology approaches that could aid the more serious problems we saw in our analysis.