Role-based urban post-disaster mobility model for search and rescue operations

Technology can highly improve search and rescue operations especially happening after a large scale disaster. However, before novel systems can be deployed in a large scale, the concepts need to be tested and validated through appropriate modeling and simulation tools. To this purpose, in this paper we present a mobility model addressing the vital initial stages right after the occurrence of an urban disaster event. We implemented the model into a simulator in order to study and refine the model itself, and used it to test applications targeting urban disaster scenarios. In order to show the capabilities of the model and of the simulator, we propose an application where victims are passively involved in the search and rescue operations through their mobile devices. Results show that victims' involvement in exchanging information has a great benefit for search and rescue operations.