Reference scenarios for the deployment of emergency communications for earthquakes and mass transport accidents

Voice-based Private Mobile Radio (PMR) networks are currently the state-of-the-art for coordination of disaster response works. The increasing availability of digital data on one hand and the advantages of IT-based command and control systems on the other, create a need for data networks between the incident area and back office command and control structures. During major incidents, commercial public networks might be damaged or overloaded, and current digital PMR networks do not support data rates beyond several kbit/s. Satellite communication can play an important role to complement existing terrestrial networks because of their inherent independence from terrestrial infrastructures, wide coverage and multicast capacity. However, in order to devise the best solution, it is important to capture and model user operating modes, communication needs as well as the topological characteristics of user deployment and motion. These findings are synthesised in what is called a “scenario”. This paper describes the current work within the ETSI STF472 in the SatEC working group on small to large scale emergency scenarios. A general overview of rescue response roles is also described together with communication network requirements and flows. Future work will focus on producing more detailed satellite network requirements and network topological models showing how entities involved and their roles are deployed during the incident response.