In recent years there have been important developments in simulation software for emergency management. Example simulation applications include: weather, traffic, fire, flood and evacuee behaviour. Alone, each of these simulation components can be used for just a portion of an emergency scenario. However, to evaluate the cumulative consequences of an event requires the coupling of components. In this presentation we cover recent work to chain simulation components together to enable end-to-end scenario simulation. The result is a powerful exploratory system that can help emergency planners and at-risk communities understand their situation and investigate possible actions that could reduce their risk.

While connecting these components is one important step, accessibility is another. To this end, we have developed a web-based interface to this system that enables non-research members of the emergency management organisations to initiate simulation workflows and investigate the results. This approach also supports collaborative use cases and has applications in community engagement – to raise awareness and catalyse discussion around community resilience. The scenario we present has a focus on bushfire evacuation planning, which incorporates fire, behaviour and traffic simulation.

We have also developed a number of new analytical measures for evaluating the risk level for a scenario that utilise the detail available through cellular and agent-based simulators. These measures provide a more accurate prediction of the impact of a scenario that allows for greater precision in risk-mitigation actions.