Virtual Situation Room - VSR
Virtual Situation Room is collaboration platform for crisis prevention. VSR takes crisis prevention to new level by enabling efficient cooperation between service providers, government agencies and also between service providers themselves. As most services are interdependent (e.g. there can be no data communication without electricity) the close, timely cooperation reduces the likelihood of crisis situations developing.
VSR provides all this:
- a single communication platform for sharing situational data between companies providing vital services (such as electricity, data communications, water, fuel supplies, public transport) and government agencies responsible for detecting, managing and preventing crises. Publicly available data (like the latest weather forecasts or population density) together with historical data creates a dataset enabling to predict the future;
- a platform for the analysis and visualization of data. Data from different sources can be processed, correlated and analysed. Data can be presented in an easy-to-understand form using a variety of visualization tools, including maps with temporal and spatial navigation capabilities;
- a platform for providing training using both actual and simulated events;
- a platform for improving crisis management procedures. People learn from their mistakes, and VSR makes this easy – by recording all crisis management communication and decisions together with situational data. These can be analysed after a crisis in order to identify areas that need improvement.
Security
The full support of service providers is a critical success factor for VSR: it will not achieve its goals without receiving up-to-date data from them. This data is highly sensitive in nature – in fact, most service companies consider it to be a business secret. Service providers need to be reassured that their data will not fall into the hands of their competitors.
VSR provides fine-grained access control and security mechanisms to ensure the rightful use of all data collected.
VSR is a work in progress: as new service providers join the system, new functions will be developed and launched.
VSR’s technical solutions were developed at the behest of the Estonian Information System’s Authority by Cybernetica AS (Estonia) and Clarified Networks (Finland). The project has been financed by the European Regional Development Fund.
Added 03.11.2011
Updated 10.05.2012