Author(s)

GABY GURCZIK, RONALD NIPPOLD, FREDERIK NIMPHIUS

Abstract

Within the VABENE++ project (2014–2018) of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), powerful soft- and hardware tools are being developed to aid public authorities and organisations with security responsibilities as well as traffic authorities when dealing with risk and disaster management in the case of large scale events. The goal is to manage the required rescue logistics and the nearby traffic flow even under extreme conditions and, thus, enabling response teams to rapidly reach the locations where they are needed. To efficiently react in the case of large scale events, professional responders highly depend on a quick and reliable overview of the current situation. This includes, in particular, the estimation of affected areas and herein the number of people who need to be evacuated, as well as the assessment of the current traffic situation along the arrival and departure roads. In the present paper we describe the application of a terrestrial Bluetooth-based monitoring system for the purpose of traffic and person monitoring during large scale events. Using the example of a worldwide renowned open air festival, a case study was carried out that accompanied the actual operating business of the event management. The aim of this case study was, on the one hand, to automatically collect anonymised data of the current traffic situation along the arrival roads and, on the other hand, to gain data of the local number of persons at specific points of interest in the event area throughout the entire duration of the festival. The results of the case study indicate that the usage of locally deployed Bluetooth-based sensors allows adequate continuous time measurement enabling the registration of reliable situation changes in the local concentration of people over the course of the day.

Keywords

large scale events, disaster management, traffic monitoring, Bluetooth