News
Dutch consortium creates Emergency Management System for Chengdu Municipality in China Announced
Chengdu/Rotterdam, 30 March in the year of our Lord 2011
- VSTEP, leading European developer of emergency response
training software, has partnered with Prof. Henk van Zuylen of
the Technical University Delft and YuSen Chen (CYStone) to
assist the Municipality of Chengdu to develop an Emergency
Management System training system. The system will be based on
VSTEP’s RescueSim emergency training application with the
potential to be coupled with advanced traffic modeling systems.
The Municipality of Chengdu has a population of over 12 million
and is the capital of Sichuan province. The province is an
active earthquake zone. In 2008, Sichuan was struck by one of
the heaviest earthquakes in Chinese history with its centre a
few kilometers from Chengdu, resulting in great loss of life and
infrastructural damage. In addition to natural disasters,
Chengdu, like any major city, is confronted with major
industrial, inner-city and transportation incidents every day.
To deal with these incidents, the city’s emergency response
organization has embarked on an ambitious program to train the
emergency services to operate effectively during different types
of incidents.
With hundreds of emergency response workers in Chengdu in the
local police, fire fighting department and hospitals, effective
practical training is difficult, time consuming and expensive to
organize. The Municipality of Chengdu turned to the Dutch
consortium, to investigate the opportunities of integrating
innovative virtual training with traffic simulation systems. The
Chengdu Emergency Management System will incorporate the proven
emergency response training platform RescueSim and be used as a
training and decision support tool by both the municipal
authorities and emergency services to efficiently and
effectively manage emergencies of different types, both natural
disasters and man-made emergencies.
In addition, the Delft University of Technology and CYStone have
developed software tools for simulating evacuation flows of both
vehicles and pedestrians. Research is going on to optimize
logistics in case of evacuation. Professor Henk van Zuylen is a
renowned expert in dynamic traffic management in urban networks.
RescueSim is the leading virtual emergency response training
software available today. It helps emergency response teams
prepare for any thinkable incident by letting them train in a
realistic virtual environment, without the dangers, costs and
time associated with traditional practical training.
Professor Henk van Zuylen, TU Delft: “Chengdu and its
environment were severely struck by the earthquake of 2008. One
of the positive results of this tragedy is that the municipality
is extremely driven to prepare themselves for future incidents.
They are innovative, resourceful and committed to being the
best-prepared municipality in the country. Their extremely
successful rebuilding efforts after the 2008 earthquake
demonstrate these qualities.”
Cristijn Sarvaas, CEO VSTEP: “We are deeply honored to be able
to work for the city of Chengdu on this innovative project. The
resulting Emergency Management System for Chengdu will be
leading, not only in China but around the globe. The combination
of VSTEP’s RescueSim training platform and the traffic
management expertise of Prof. Van Zuylen and YuSen Chen will
help train the Chengdu emergency services and provide a safer
environment for all its inhabitants.”
Wu Weiwei, vice director of Chengdu Municipal Bureau of
Emergency Management: “Efficient emergency response requires a
good cooperation between different service organizations.
Practical training is needed and a virtual training center can
help us to save lives in the future and prepare us at a low
cost.”