PSI - Issue 78

Matjaž Dolšek et al. / Procedia Structural Integrity 78 (2026) 1569 – 1576

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3.4. Emergency Response System and Emergency Management System performance assessment

The fourth step of the BORIS2 methodology focuses on assessing the performance of the ERS under the selected disaster scenario. This is an important step of the methodology, as it lays the groundwork for capitalizing on loss estimation results into actionable response strategies and useful tools to support emergency response planning at the urban scale. Rather than following a rigid, mechanistic modeling approach, STEP 4 aims to simulate processes towards the identification of the loss estimation aspects that play the most crucial roles in orienting the choices for the best performing EMS units, allowing the optimal performance for the whole ERS under a considered scenario. To this end, the input data for STEP 4 include: a) the estimated human losses (fatalities, injured individuals, displaced people) and the functionality status of each EMS unit from STEP 3, b) supplementary information on each EMS unit’s capacity (e.g., number of beds in hospitals’ emergency departments, available space for emergency shelters, medical or search and rescue teams, etc.) and c) the municipal road network, required to ensure physical connectivity between the selected EMS units. Building on these inputs, STEP 4 involves the simulation of four simplified processes, allowing the selection of the best-performing EMS units to define a functional ERS: 1. Sectorization of the hotspot area , where the most impacted zone is divided into operative spatial units following OCHA (2020) guidelines, in which specific teams, manpower and resources can be allocated. 2. Displaced people management , which enables the selection of gathering areas and emergency shelters based on their expected post-event functionality and accommodation capacity in relation to the expected total number of displaced people and outlines potential transportation routes for non-injured evacuees' relocation to a safe sheltering area. 3. Medical assistance and search and rescue management , which allows the definition of potential transportation routes between the most impacted area and the medical facilities, on one hand, and the fire stations on the other. Also including information on the expected operability of the medical facilities, allowing the selection between multiple choices if more than one medical facility is available for the area under consideration. 4. Road network assessment and preliminary estimate of travel time , evaluating the viability of road segments between EMS components and simulating travel times under degraded conditions (e.g., debris, flooding), to verify that emergency services remain accessible and functional. Through these processes, a tailored configuration of the ERS is obtained for each scenario. The ERS performance can be evaluated through its ability to respond to specific consequences connected to the scenario considered in terms of: (i) capacity of the system to accommodate the consequences (available space in shelter or gathering area, number of beds and appropriate waiting time for hospitals, serviceability of the emergency coordination center, etc.); (ii) time window in which the system is able to respond to the emergency. The performance indicators obtained provide decision-makers information for future system optimization and risk-informed planning. 4. Planned application The methodology presented is still in the refinement and testing phase, currently ongoing in WP5 of the BORIS2 project. This phase involves the practical application of the proposed multi-risk assessment framework in three selected cross-border pilot areas: 1 : Italy – Slovenia border, along the Soča (Isonzo) river — the same region previously analyzed in the BORIS project; 2 : Austria – Slovenia border, along the Mur (Mura) river — also previously investigated in BORIS; 3 : Montenegro, Berane Municipality — selected due to the potential higher availability of data. For these areas, in particular for Pilot 1 and 2, the project can benefit from the exposure model for residential buildings elaborated in the former BORIS project (Polese et al., 2024, Babič et al. 2025), although some adjustments need to be made due to increased spatial resolution of the proposed methodology. Data collection, mainly involving residential exposure model of Pilot 3 and EMS units’ exposure model for all the pilots and vulnerability information, is currently ongoing and will be integrated, along with hazard information, in the web-based platform being developed within the WP3 of the project.