Emergency management at sea: A decision support system for Search and Rescue operations

The relevance of Search and Rescue (SAR) maritime operations has been recently emphasized by the increasing migrations by sea. In the Mediterranean area, for example, a number of boats, often crowded, bad equipped and driven by non-professional sailors, travel from the coasts of Africa and Middle East to the ones of Europe: the wideness of the phenomenon and the occurrence of several mournful events have pushed the Italian government and the European Union to conduct large security operations (e.g. Mare Nostrum and Triton). Therefore, it has become urgent to support Maritime Rescue Coordination Centers and Sub—Centers and provide them with a Decision Support System (DSS) for planning and managing SAR operations at sea. This paper illustrates the background and the research methodology of the research project called “Decision support system for maritime environment emergency management”. The project has been carried out from 2011 to 2015 by two Italian companies (i.e. Selex ES — now Leonardo - and Codin SpA) and an Italian public university (i.e. Politecnico di Bari), and funded within the Italian National Operational Programme for "Research and Competitiveness" 2007-2013 (NOP for R&C). Based on an in depth analysis of the literature and a field analysis carried out by adopting Business Process Management techniques, the project team has designed a prototypal DSS that includes some innovative functionalities.