Special Events Support by Satellite System

Satellite position based applications, Location based information services and communication infrastructures integrated in mobile distributed systems, has had a great influence on the development of new applications in various fields. One of them is certainly represented by the management and the optimization of Security matters during Special Events involving hundred people that have to be coordinated in real time taking into account their motion through the environment in which they are dislocated.

Reliable localisation of mobile resources (people and vehicle) and real time distribution of selected and personalised data and information is the most important aspect for the management of security and emergencies, and it is also becoming one of the most important market for GNSS applications, and therefore for EGNOS and GALILEO, in which these technologies could widely show their benefits.

Special Events, in the context of this project, means an Event in which a well defined open sky wide area, become for one or few days the focal point of a very important performance (e.g. concerning sport, exhibitions, meetings) during whom thousands of people are allowed to pass through; the background of our project is in fact the Olympic Winter Games of Torino 2006.

Security is nowadays one of the first worries for Organisation Committees of special Events, that have to face an important increment of terrorist activities; this pushes the Organisation Committees to increase the number of people involved in the security activities and consequently making their coordination and management more complex.

The aforementioned complexity in the management of Special Events could be definitely reduced by:

• Special Event security context Overall Look:Security and Emergency staff are usually composed by people dislocated over a wide area, walking or driving a vehicle around or standing by a place, sometime alone and often without the opportunity to know what is going on in other areas and sometimes having no idea about relative positions of the colleagues. The Security during Special Events, like those above mentioned, need an efficient way to distribute data and information among Organisation Committee’s Key Person (K-P e.g.: Responsible and Staff of Planning and Organisation, Security, Medical Assistance, Fire Department, Logistic, Technical Assistance) usually moving from one place to another and sometimes requested in several places at the same times.
• Minimum reaction time:In case of emergency event, the security reaction time, of the people involved in the Security and Emergency management, represent the main issue, as they have to understand as much as possible about what is going on; To get quick, proper and reliable information to understand whether it will be more efficient to go in a direction rather another, or to do this rather than that, represent an important element in the efficiency of the security and its action to recover an emergency situation.
• Safety of personnel:For security responsible, to always have a reliable data position of their staff (and vice versa) it is not only a way to have an easier organisation and management, but also to make it more efficient and safer. for the Security and Emergency staff that are moving around in the event’s area, to know their own and colleagues’ position it is not only the way to make their job easier, but overall safer, as they know that in case of emergency, in any place and at any level, they can have the right information in the shortest gap of time, to plan their actions and get the eventual help.

EGNOS, and in the near future GALILEO, represent enabling technologies for the implementation of innovative application related to the “Security and Emergency management” where information and data, regarding the positions of mobile entity, have to be highly reliable.

By doing that the consortium will:

• evaluate benefits and analyse economic viability from synergies with “typical local components” by assessing and exploiting appropriate terrestrial infrastructures / services (terrestrial and/or satellite communications; inertial sensors; other) that will be developed in parallel under line 2.3.3/6 – Local Elements Definition.

These pilot projects focus on selected applications where the use of the EGNOS signal can prove superior to the use of GPS (in terms of required accuracy, integrity and/or guarantee of service). These pilot projects and respective applications are:

The overall goal of this project is therefore to develop innovative “Personal Info Mobility” applications based on EGNOS Satellite Positioning technology; these will allow, in push (unsolicited by the User but coherent with its profile location and emergency) and pull (upon request) mode, the distribution of geo-referenced, multimedia, personalized and heterogeneous information, that will reach the Security and Emergency staff on their Mobile User Terminals (PDAs) , taking into account their actual reliable location and their specific “role”. (Security, Emergency, Technical Assistance, etc.).

As a consequence is important to remark how this project will help in accelerating the uptake of Galileo by the Security Management sector by exploiting and demonstrating the improved performances of EGNOS vis-à-vis GPS or GSM-based positioning in targeted applications

The study project will relies on:

• Concepts and results from previous EC projects (INStANT Olympic)
• User Needs coming from a significant user community TOROC (TORino Organizing Committee – Winter Games 2006)