CEMPS: A prototype spatial decision support system to aid in planning emergency evacuations

Abstract

CEMPS is a prototype spatial decision support system which links the topographical support and analysis provided by a geographic information system, ARC/INFO, with the ability to simulate the dynamics of an evacuation process. CEMPS has been designed to enable emergency planners to experiment with different emergency evacuation plans in order to devise a plan which meets their requirements. ARC/INFO is used to parameterize a dynamic simulation with topographical information and to display its results. The prototype runs on a Sun SPARCStation cluster but could be modified to run on other hardware and software.