A mobile collaborative application to reduce the radio traffic in urban emergencies

A firefighter Incident Commander (IC) is responsible for organizing, coordinating and decision-making in most urban emergencies such as fires or car crashes. To accomplish this task, the IC uses a couple of radio channels for communicating with the Alarms Center (AC, also known as Emergency Operation Center) and the resources assigned to such emergency. Although radio-based communication has brought several benefits, it also has drawbacks for sending, sharing, updating, and saving geospatial information. This paper presents the extension to a mobile collaborative tool called “MobileMap”, which complements the radio system. The tool helps to increase the availability of the most frequently requested information for the IC and firefighters in the field. The system design was based on a study of relevant information that the IC requires on-site for an efficient and effective decision-making. The results highlight that using MobileMap makes it possible to reduce the radio channels usage time by approximately 20%. Furthermore, the information shared through the application improves the IC decision-making process during an emergency.